Autonomous Drone Validation Engineer (SITL/HITL)

Harmattan AI; Lausanne; On-site; CHF 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Harmattan AI is seeking a Software Test & Validation Engineer to advance drone flight software through SITL/HITL validation, automated tests, and data-driven reporting. You will shape test scenarios, improve the SITL/HITL environment, and contribute to CI/CD pipelines for scalable validation across hundreds of drones, working with flight software, simulation, and hardware teams.

We value system-level thinking, a statistical mindset, and clear ownership; bonus for drone/ robotics experience and

Qualifications

• Background in software engineering, embedded systems, mechatronics, aerospace, or a closely related field.
• Strong Python for test tooling and automation; C++ is a plus.
• Scope beyond pure coding: system-level thinking, architectural grasp, statistical mindset for noisy data, physical intuition.
• Some combination of: test-scenario/framework design; CI/CD and DevOps tooling (Docker, Jenkins/GitLab CI, Git, Linux); simulation (SITL/HITL); or telemetry capture and analysis.
• A validation mindset: rigour, attention to edge cases, and healthy scepticism about what passing means.
• Clear communication and ownership; collaboration with flight-software, simulation/tooling and hardware teams.
• Bonus: background in drones or robotics; experience with statistical analysis of noisy test data.

Responsibilities

• Test design and content: define scenarios, decide measurements, turn noisy flight metrics into stable pass/fail signals.
• Drive and improve SITL/HITL environment; push it to be more representative and feed back improvements to models and scenarios.
• Automation and tooling: write Python tools to load, parse, analyze test outputs, detect regressions, and produce actionable reports.
• CI/CD integration: integrate simulation and hardware tests into the pipeline for fast, reproducible validation on every build.
• Onboard new systems: build test scenarios, metrics, and coverage for new platforms.
• Telemetry and replay: capture flight/test telemetry and ensure it can be replayed for reproduction and analysis.

Skills

Strong Python for test tooling

System-level thinking

Clear communication

Ownership

Statistical mindset

Physical intuition

Tools

Docker

Jenkins

GitLab CI

Linux

Python

Job description

Harmattan AI is seeking a Software Test & Validation Engineer to advance drone flight software through SITL/HITL validation, automated tests, and data-driven reporting. You will shape test scenarios, improve the SITL/HITL environment, and contribute to CI/CD pipelines for scalable validation across hundreds of drones, working with flight software, simulation, and hardware teams.

We value system-level thinking, a statistical mindset, and clear ownership; bonus for drone/ robotics experience and