Electronics Design & Test Lead, Infotainment & Connectivity

Socket.dev; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies in Palo Alto is seeking an Electronics Test and Validation engineer to drive ECU characterization for Infotainment and Connectivity ECUs. You will review schematics early, guide test method development, and lead power integrity, RF, and thermal analyses across multi-rail designs.

You'll develop tests, run bench characterization, craft DFT feedback, and build automation to speed verification. A strong EE background and 7+ years in testing are required.

Qualifications

• BS/MS in Electrical Engineering or related field; equivalent work experience.
• 7+ years of electronics design, characterization and validation testing.
• Experience with lab instrumentation (high‑bandwidth scopes, probes, VNA, BERT, power supplies, electronic loads, DMMs, DAQ).
• Hands‑on with spectrum analyzers, vector signal analyzers/generators, or wireless testers (LitePoint, R&S, Anritsu).
• Strong fundamentals in EE, power and signal integrity for high‑compute hardware.
• RF fundamentals, impedance, shielding, and OTA/active measurements.
• Experience in Python data analysis and AI tool usage for test code and data analysis.

Responsibilities

• Develop detailed design verification and characterization test plans for ECU programs.
• Execute characterization tests according to project milestones.
• Own test coverage reports and analysis.
• Perform bench-level characterization at IC and PCBA levels, including power sequencing and PMIC behavior.
• Characterize high‑speed interfaces (GMSL, USB, PCIe, Automotive Ethernet) with eye diagrams, jitter, BER and link training.
• Characterize RF performance of integrated radios (Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth, LTE/5G, GNSS) including TX/RX metrics.
• Lead power integrity and coexistence/desense characterization for InfoConn ECUs.
• Provide feedback to design engineers on testability, instrumentation hooks, and DFT inclusion.
• Write automation scripts and instrumentation drivers in Python for faster characterization.

Skills

Electrical Engineering

Test and Validation

Python scripting

RF engineering

Power integrity

Schematic review

Data analysis

AI tooling experience

Lab instrumentation

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

BS/MS in Electrical Engineering

Tools

Oscilloscopes

VNA

BERT

Power supplies

DAQ

Logic analyzers

LTspice

AI tooling (Copilot/Claude)

Job description

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies in Palo Alto is seeking an Electronics Test and Validation engineer to drive ECU characterization for Infotainment and Connectivity ECUs. You will review schematics early, guide test method development, and lead power integrity, RF, and thermal analyses across multi-rail designs.

You'll develop tests, run bench characterization, craft DFT feedback, and build automation to speed verification. A strong EE background and 7+ years in testing are required.