Autonomous Marine Robotics Test Engineer

Dover; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Ulysses seeks two Test Engineers to validate Mako underwater vehicles and Leviathan surface systems, ensuring readiness for deployment from bench to sea. You will own test design, measurements, acceptance criteria, and results while collaborating with mechanical, electrical, software, and operations teams.

You will build fixtures, collect data, write scripts for test setup and analysis, and develop regression tests to catch issues after changes.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience testing electromechanical products, robots, vehicles, or similar hardware, including investigating failures and establishing their causes.
• Strong engineering fundamentals. You can isolate a variable, measure the right thing, and produce a defensible result.
• Practical experience with lab instruments, sensors, and data acquisition. You're comfortable reading wiring diagrams, checking signals, and troubleshooting setups.
• Ability to script test automation and data analysis in Python or a comparable language, and use Linux tools and software logs.
• Careful records and clear communication that let another person repeat your procedure and understand the result.
• Comfort in workshops and aboard boats, with sound judgment about test hazards and when to stop.
• Availability to work on-site in San Francisco and travel domestically and internationally for tests and deployments.

Responsibilities

• Turn requirements into test plans with measurable acceptance criteria. Choose the right bench, tank, or sea test for each question.
• Build fixtures, instrumentation, and data collection tools with engineering teams. Check that measurements are trustworthy.
• Test power, communications, sensors, actuation, sealing, and endurance. Record operating conditions and the limits of each setup.
• Plan integrated tests for navigation, control, payloads, fault handling, and launch and recovery interfaces.
• Write scripts for test setup, data collection, and analysis. Build regression tests to catch failures after changes.
• Record hardware serial numbers, assembly revisions, firmware, software, calibration, and configuration so others can reproduce results.
• Prepare water tests with crews and technical operations. Agree responsibilities and stop conditions, and check logs cover the full run.
• Investigate mechanical, electrical, and software failures. Separate observations from possible causes, reproduce problems, and verify fixes with their owners.
• Report results, untested areas, and issues to address before the next release process or deployment. Make clear readiness recommendations.
• Help production develop acceptance procedures, fixtures, and instructions that make failures easy to detect and diagnose.

Skills

Electromechanical testing

Engineering fundamentals

Lab instruments & data acquisition

Python scripting

Clear documentation

Workshop & field testing

On-site SF travel

Tools

Linux

CAN bus / Ethernet

Data acquisition hardware

Job description

Ulysses seeks two Test Engineers to validate Mako underwater vehicles and Leviathan surface systems, ensuring readiness for deployment from bench to sea. You will own test design, measurements, acceptance criteria, and results while collaborating with mechanical, electrical, software, and operations teams.

You will build fixtures, collect data, write scripts for test setup and analysis, and develop regression tests to catch issues after changes.