Staff Integration and Test Responsible Engineer

About the Team:

The Interplanetary Sciences Program is building a philanthropically funded Mars science orbiter targeted to launch in 2028. You will build the integrated hardware-in-the-loop (HITL) test capability that allows the spacecraft team to test early, continuously, and with real hardware. Then carry that ownership into final spacecraft integration and test leading up to flight.

This is a hands-on integration and test role spanning hardware, software automation, and spacecraft-level validation. You will take the HITL environment from an empty rack to a running, automated, always-on validation system that proves our payloads, avionics, flight software, and interfaces work together as intended.

You will build the bench, the software fixturing that exercises flight software against real and representative hardware, and the CI and regression infrastructure that continuously checks the system as it evolves. You won't just execute test procedures—you'll understand what each test proves, why it matters, and whether the result is actually credible.

You will work shoulder to shoulder with engineers across the spacecraft. If you like owning a capability end to end, debugging across hardware and software boundaries, and being the reason the rest of the program can move quickly with confidence, this is that seat.

About the Role:

• Design, build, and maintain the ISP HITL test environment end to end, including rack fabrication, avionics installation, breakout hardware, load emulation, harness fabrication and routing, and supporting test equipment.
• Build the simulation, data-acquisition, and control infrastructure that drives stimulus into the system, captures results, and allows flight software to be exercised against real and representative spacecraft hardware.
• Develop software fixturing, automated test frameworks, and CI/regression pipelines that validate every software change on hardware with automated pass/fail adjudication, regression detection, and clear failure reporting.
• Debug integrated failures across flight software, avionics, interfaces, harnessing, timing, communications, and test infrastructure until root cause is understood and fed back to the responsible design teams.
• Validate timing-sensitive behavior and interfaces across sensors, actuators, payloads, avionics, and communication buses, including longer-duration and soak testing where appropriate.
• Establish dashboards, telemetry views, configuration control, and test procedures that make system health, test coverage, anomalies, and requirements traceability clear to the broader engineering team.
• Drive final integration and test of flight hardware leading into launch, coordinating with subsystem responsible engineers to ensure hardware and software are designed for integration and test from the beginning.

About You:

• Degree in computer, electrical, aerospace, or a related engineering field, or equivalent hands-on experience
• 7+ years of experience in test engineering, including architecting automated test frameworks for integrated hardware, firmware, and software systems
• Strong, current software skills for test automation, tooling, and validation pipelines
• A track record of building test automation and CI/regression infrastructure from the ground up, including telemetry/logging, automated pass/fail, and continuous test execution
• Hands-on hardware and embedded systems experience, including bench troubleshooting with standard electronics equipment and familiarity with interfaces such as Ethernet, UART, and SPI
• Demonstrated ability to own a complex test capability end to end, drive integrated hardware/software failures to root cause, and coordinate effectively across engineering teams
  
  

Nice to haves but not required:

• Experience standing up a test bench, HITL system, SIL/HIL environment, lab automation capability, or integrated test platform from scratch
• Experience with spacecraft, launch vehicles, satellites, robotics, autonomous systems, aircraft, vehicles, medical devices, industrial equipment, or other high-reliability hardware
• Hands-on experience with harnessing, cable fabrication, breakout boards, rack wiring, or test equipment setup
• Experience helping establish test practices, tools, or team processes in a fast-moving engineering environment