Test Engineer, Hardware and Systems

Location: Onsite in San Bruno, California, United States; support 10% domestic and international travel and occasional extended or weekend hours.

Salary: $120,000–$160,000 annually, plus early-stage equity and company-sponsored benefits.

Company

Defense technology company designing and manufacturing power products for the U.S. military and its allies, including systems for power generation, storage, and mobility.

What you will do

• Design, build, instrument, and automate test equipment for batteries, inverters, DC-DC converters, controllers, distribution units, and integrated power systems.
• Develop automated test equipment and unit-level test stations, including test scripts, coverage, data acquisition, and post-processing pipelines.
• Execute component, subsystem, and system validation across electrical, thermal, mechanical, environmental, and high-voltage conditions, including fault injection.
• Develop environmental test programs covering temperature cycling, vibration, shock, ingress, and corrosion against military, energy, and automotive specifications.
• Collaborate with firmware and design engineers to validate embedded control logic, identify failure modes, document DVP&R entries, and drive design changes.
• Support HIL/SIL setups, correlate bench data with simulation models, and help establish laboratory equipment, calibration, safety, and documentation processes.

Requirements

• BS or MS in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronics, Robotics, or a related field; equivalent engineering experience may be considered.
• At least 3 years of hands-on hardware test and validation experience, or at least 2 years of professional technical engineering, design, or product experience.
• Experience with oscilloscopes, power supplies, DAQs, multimeters, function generators, electronic loads, and automated test equipment.
• Proficiency in Python, LabVIEW, or comparable platforms for test automation, data acquisition, and data processing.
• Knowledge of mechanical, thermal, electrical, controls, structures, materials, fluids, dynamics, and system modeling fundamentals, plus embedded protocols such as CAN, SPI, I2C, LIN, or UART.
• Must work onsite in San Bruno, California, be authorized to work in the United States, work on foot in a shop environment, and lift or carry up to 50 lb.

Nice to have

• 3D CAD, SOLIDWORKS, CAE/FEA, engineering drawings, GD&T, and ASME standards experience.
• Manufacturing and machine-shop experience, including CNC, machining, welding, soldering, casting, forging, and sheet metal work.
• Rapid prototyping, 3D printing, and hands-on fabrication experience.
• Familiarity with MIL-STD, DO-160, automotive, defense, or aerospace standards.
• Experience with root-cause analysis, first-principles problem solving, cross-functional collaboration, and end-to-end test ownership.

Culture & Benefits

• High-ownership, hands-on work spanning hardware, firmware, and systems engineering.
• Products are fielded in U.S. Department of Defense exercises and designed for operational military environments.
• Access to early-stage equity and company-sponsored benefit plans.
• Work includes collaboration across engineering disciplines and establishing robust test, safety, calibration, and documentation practices.