Tools and Automation Engineer

Apple•Cupertino, CA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Apple Inc. is seeking a Tools and Automation Engineer to join their team in Cupertino, California, and various other locations across the USA. This role involves designing investigations to characterize the power consumption of intellectual property blocks and system components under typical customer usage scenarios. The goal is to validate engineering targets and support marketing claims regarding battery life and system performance for Mac portable and desktop product lines. Responsibilities include executing test scenarios, managing experimental variables, extracting logs for data analysis and visualization, and reviewing electrical schematics for power triaging and debugging. The engineer will accurately determine system power consumption, support troubleshooting efforts, maintain the status of new product introductions, and provide project updates to senior management. This includes managing testing schedules, test results, escalating issues, and verifying compliance with environmental and legal mandates. The role requires presenting findings to cross-functional teams focused on optimizing power, performance, acoustics, and thermals for Mac products. The engineer will also drive troubleshooting efforts for power-related issues across software and hardware teams, validate proposed solutions, identify gaps in test coverage, and collaborate with test automation development teams to define new tests and improve existing ones for accuracy and consistency. Post-mortem analysis will be conducted to capture lessons learned, identify potential issue escapes, and highlight opportunities for future design improvements.

Requirements

Master’s degree or foreign equivalent in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Engineering, or a related field.
1 year of experience in the job offered or a related occupation.
Using Python to perform data analysis and visualization and automate communication with test equipment and internal tools.
Utilizing Unix shell scripting to sequence test environment setup, execute test scenarios, and manage experimental variables and logging of results.
Leveraging electrical schematics to perform power triaging and debugging to identify root causes of performance regressions resulting from electrical and computer engineering design issues.
Utilizing lab equipment including digital multimeters, power meters, oscilloscopes, digital-to-analog converters, pre-amp cards, and power supplies to accurately measure system and component power consumption and support troubleshooting and debug efforts when issues are detected.
Preparing data for cross-functional presentation using Numbers and Keynote and documenting issues in an internal bug-tracking tool.
Using Jira Confluence to track project timelines, current status of issues under investigation, overall status of test plan completion.
Using Tableau to visualize data and communicate trends in test results.
Using SOC power management design concepts and implementation, including clock gating, power gating, and dynamic voltage and frequency scaling.
Knowledge of DC/DC and AC/DC power supply and buck/boost converter operation and efficiency measurement.

Responsibilities

Design investigations to characterize power consumption of intellectual property blocks and system components.
Execute test scenarios, sequence test setup, and manage experimental variables.
Extract logs and key value pairs to inform data analysis and visualization.
Execute electrical schematic review and power data collection to perform power triaging and debugging.
Accurately determine system power consumption and support troubleshooting and debug efforts.
Maintain overall status of new product introduction process and provide project updates to senior management.
Present findings to the cross-functional team tasked with optimizing power, performance, acoustics, and thermals for Mac products.
Drive troubleshooting and debugging efforts to address power impacting issues across software and hardware teams and validate proposed solutions.
Identify gaps in current test coverage and consult with test automation development teams to define new testing, improve efficiency and accuracy in current testing, and ensure consistency in test coverage.
Perform post-mortem analysis to collect lessons learned, identify potential issue escapes, and highlight opportunities for future design changes.