Hardware Test Engineer, Droid
On-siteSouth San Francisco, California, United States
Job Summary
Own the ground test strategy for the droid and zipping point infrastructure, covering pickup mechanics, tether engagement, and environmental exposure. Design, build, and deploy custom mechanical fixtures and life-test rigs, integrating electrical systems like load cells and DAQ with Python automation for data logging and pass/fail evaluation. Drive test campaigns from early prototype validation through qualification and production end-of-line testing, triaging root-cause failures across mechanical, electrical, and firmware domains. Partner with cross-disciplinary engineering teams to push back on unsupported requirements and propose reliability improvements, occasionally traveling to suppliers in China, Malaysia, Japan, Italy, Germany, and Vietnam to deploy equipment and support production ramps.
Required Qualifications
- BS or MS in Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronics, Robotics, or a related field
- 3+ years of hands-on experience delivering electromechanical hardware or test software
- Demonstrated ability to design mechanical hardware in a CAD environment (we use Siemens NX)
- Comfort with the electrical side of test equipment - reading schematics, wiring up a fixture, debugging with a scope, selecting the right sensor for the job
- Real Python experience
- Experience writing test automation, data processing scripts, or bench-top control software that other people relied on
- A systems approach to problem solving: a knack for identifying whether a failure lives in mechanics, electronics, firmware, or their interaction, and diving deep into whichever domain the problem lives in
- Strong fabrication and prototyping instincts - you're comfortable in a machine shop, with hand tools, and at a soldering station
- The judgment to know when a test is telling you something real vs. when the fixture itself is the problem
- Must be able to travel occasionally to suppliers and manufacturing partners (China, Malaysia, Japan, Italy, Germany, Vietnam) to deploy test equipment, qualify processes, and support production ramps
Desired Qualifications
- Experience with high-cycle mechanical life testing, environmental chambers, or accelerated life test design
- Firmware experience (C, C++, Rust) on microcontrollers driving test equipment
- PCB design experience for custom fixtures or breakout boards (Altium, KiCad)
- Prior work in drone, robotics, automotive, medical device, or consumer electronics NPI
- Experience deploying test equipment to contract manufacturers and supporting production ramps
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