Lead Avionics Test Engineer
$190,000–$250,000 year
On-siteTorrance, California, United States
Job Summary
Own the vision, architecture, and execution of the avionics test organization as the team transitions from prototype to production. Provide technical leadership by establishing standards, designing fixtures, and building automated test stations for HIL environments and integrated sub-systems. Develop and execute test plans to validate hardware performance across electrical, digital, mechanical, and RF metrics while leading failure analysis and root-cause investigations. Drive qualification campaigns including thermal, vibration, and EMI testing, feeding results back into design cycles to support hardware teams. This role blends hands-on lab work with systems-level reasoning, requiring close collaboration with electrical, controls, software, and mechanical engineering teams.
Required Qualifications
- B.S./M.S. in Electrical, Mechanical, Mechatronics, Aerospace, or related
- Experience testing high-power subsystems, high-speed digital interfaces, actuators, or RF hardware
- Hands-on experience developing automated test equipment using instruments such as oscilloscopes, DMMs, power supplies, loads, switch matrices, network analyzers, etc.
- Familiarity with embedded control systems and interfaces (CAN, RS-422/485, SPI, Ethernet)
- Experience with instrumentation control and data acquisition (Python, C++, protobufs, scripting)
- Ability to work independently and lead cross-functional test integration
- While this position does not currently require a U.S government-issued security clearance, it may in the near future. Therefore, the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government–issued security clearance is required.
- U.S. citizenship is required, as only U.S. citizens are eligible for a security clearance.
Desired Qualifications
- Experience in RF testing fundamentals or more advanced knowledge of Radar architecture
- Experience with software development for test automation for digital, power, and RF electronics (Python preferred)
- Experience controlling test instrumentation using SCPI, VISA, or PyVISA commands
- Experience developing GUIs or dashboards
- Experience in writing custom scripts for data analysis & database creation
- Experience writing software for Environmental Chambers and/or RF Chambers
- Exposure to flight-like test environments, including environmental stress screening (ESS)
- Experience with fault injection, failure mode testing, and reliability qualification for mission-critical systems
- Working knowledge of C/C++ or Python for custom test tooling or embedded systems debugging
- Background supporting flight test or launch operations.
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