Hardware-in-the-Loop Flight Software Engineer

Joby Aviation; California (MO); On-site; USD 136,000 - 203,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid time off

Healthcare benefits

401(k) with company match

Employee stock purchase plan (ESPP)

Disability insurance

Life insurance

Job summary

Joby Advanced Development seeks an engineer to own hardware-in-the-loop and test-automation for novel aircraft and flight automation systems. You will ensure fidelity of the HITL pipeline, enabling safe, rapid testing of changes to the redundant compute system.

You will collaborate with software, flight controls, avionics, and flight test teams to deliver high-impact, reliable infrastructure and repeatable in-the-loop scenarios across HITL, SIL, and PIL environments.

Qualifications

• University degree in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, mechatronics, or a similar field; or a strong portfolio of embedded / test-automation software and 5+ years relevant industry experience.
• Strong C++ and Python, and fluency with Git.
• Experience building or maintaining hardware in the loop or comparable automated test infrastructure that runs real embedded hardware in CI.
• Working knowledge of embedded communication buses (CAN, UART/RS-485, I2C, SPI, or similar) at the level needed to debug them with a scope or logic analyzer.
• Understanding of real-time and safety-critical software concepts: deterministic fixed-rate execution, timing budgets, redundancy, and what makes a test of such a system trustworthy.
• Experience with a hermetic build system (Bazel or equivalent) and a CI system (Buildkite, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or equivalent).
• Experience with Linux, including remote deployment and debugging on embedded Linux targets.
• A passion for clean, long-lived, and readable object-oriented software architecture.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain the test infrastructure, fault injection frameworks and annunciation mechanisms required for in-the-loop testing.
• Develop software in the loop, hardware in the loop and aircraft in the loop simulation infrastructure: in-the-loop scenario runner, simulated peripherals, and per mode configuration.
• Bring up, debug, and maintain the physical HITL rigs, and keep rig hardware and configuration matched to the real aircraft they stand in for.
• Build and extend hardware-CI pipelines that deploy flight software to rig hardware and run pass/fail, timing, and platform-log checks automatically, with results stored for trend tracking.
• Write and maintain Bazel-based C++ and Python scenario and unit tests, including property-based tests, that exercise the flight software against realistic sensor, actuator, timing, and network-transport conditions.
• Integrate new sensors and actuators into both the simulated and hardware-in-the-loop environments over their native buses (CAN, UART/RS-485, I2C, SPI, ARINC 429, Ethernet).
• Triage rig and CI failures: separate simulation-fidelity gaps from rig hardware faults from real flight-software bugs, and drive each to the right owner with a reproducible case.
• Work with flight test and controls engineers to convert observed flight behavior into repeatable in-the-loop scenarios, closing the loop between flight data and pre-flight validation.

Skills

C++

Python

Git

Embedded software

Test automation

Education

University degree or equivalent

Tools

Bazel

Buildkite

Jenkins

GitHub Actions

Job description

Joby Advanced Development seeks an engineer to own hardware-in-the-loop and test-automation for novel aircraft and flight automation systems. You will ensure fidelity of the HITL pipeline, enabling safe, rapid testing of changes to the redundant compute system.

You will collaborate with software, flight controls, avionics, and flight test teams to deliver high-impact, reliable infrastructure and repeatable in-the-loop scenarios across HITL, SIL, and PIL environments.