Hardware Test Engineer, Robotics

TAR; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

TAR is hiring a Hardware Test Engineer for the robotics program in San Francisco. You will stand up the test function from zero and own rigs, instrumentation, test plans, and reliability data to decide if a robot is ready for field deployment.

This hands-on role requires building fixtures and owning failures from first appearance to proven fix, with travel to field sites. This senior role is based at our SF robotics facility, with responsibilities spanning design of test harnesses, data

Qualifications

• 4+ years in hardware test, validation, or reliability engineering on robotic, vehicle, or electromechanical systems.
• Design and build your own test rigs and fixtures with CAD and GD&T fluency.
• Instrumentation and DAQ depth: load cells, strain gauges, thermocouples, accelerometers, and encoders.
• Strong mechanical engineering fundamentals and structured root cause methods (8D, 5-Why, teardown).
• Accelerated life and durability test experience.
• Python or equivalent scripting for test automation and data analysis.

Responsibilities

• Design and build the test harnesses, rigs, and fixtures required to test robotic systems from the subsystem level through a production representative design.
• Turn requirements and design constraints into executable test plans for functional, durability, accelerated life, and environmental testing with SOPs for parallel testing.
• Instrument machines and rigs with load cells, strain gauges, thermocouples, accelerometers, and encoders, and own the DAQ and data pipeline.
• Run environmental testing to characterize limits: high temp, thermal cycling, dust, vibration, humidity, UV exposure.
• Own root cause end to end: reproduce failure, isolate, and work with design team to implement and validate fix.
• Build reliability models from test and field data, including life estimates and sample sizes for trust.
• Automate test execution, reporting, and dashboards to show what is breaking and how often.
• Qualify machines for field deployment and design end-of-line acceptance tests as fleet grows.
• Experience standing up a test function from zero is a plus.

Skills

Test rig design

Robotics testing

Instrumentation/DAQ

Python scripting

Mechanical fundamentals

Root cause analysis

Education

Tools

CAD

GD&T

Job description

TAR builds the energy infrastructure America needs. Explore our open roles below and apply directly.

Hardware Test Engineer, Robotics

Location

Employment Type

Full time

Location Type

On-site

Department

Engineering Hardware Engineering

Mission

TAR’s mission is to power intelligence for the world. We are building the world’s first off-grid power plant for data centers powered by renewable technologies.

We firmly believe AI should be built in the US for the benefit of all people. For that, power must be fast, clean and scalable. We are singularly focused on delivering GW-scale power faster than anyone has ever done, by rethinking every layer of the stack.

We vertically integrate to solve every bottleneck, from racking systems to power electronics to dispatch algorithms to on-site construction.

Leave your mark on the future of civilization-scale energy infrastructure.

Company

TAR is both a hardware and software company, we are building out massive, critical, physical infrastructure. TAR is working directly with one of the largest compute providers to scale and deploy 5GWs by 2028.

High ownership. High Agency. Own project end-to-end. Great people don’t need to be managed.

Speed. We achieve great things on incredible timelines. We push ourselves to go faster.

First principles. No ego. No hierarchy. Challenge every assumption.

Passion. Solving the energy problem is one of the largest challenges that faces the world now and in the future.

About the role

As a Hardware Test Engineer for the robotics program, you stand up the test function from zero and own it: the rigs, the instrumentation, the test plans, and the reliability data that decides whether a robot is ready to leave the shop. You design and build fixtures yourself, end to end, and own every failure from first appearance to proven fix. This is a hands‑on role for an experienced engineer at our San Francisco robotics facility, with travel to our West Texas site for field testing.

Responsibilities

Design and build the test harnesses, rigs, and fixtures required to test robotic systems from the subsystem level through a production representative design.

Turn requirements and design constraints into executable test plans covering functional, durability, accelerated life, and environmental testing, with SOPs that let others run tests in parallel without you.

Instrument machines and rigs with load cells, strain gauges, thermocouples, accelerometers, and encoders, and own the DAQ and data pipeline behind them.

Run environmental testing to characterize the limits of the design: high temperature, thermal cycling, dust and particulate ingress, vibration, shock, humidity, and UV exposure.

Own root cause end to end: reproduce the failure, isolate it, and work with the design team to implement and validate the fix.

Build reliability models from test and field data, including life estimates, failure distributions, and the sample sizes needed to trust them.

Automate test execution, reporting, and dashboards so the team knows what is actually breaking and how often.

Qualify machines for field deployment and work cross-functionally to design end‑of‑line acceptance tests as the fleet grows.

Qualifications

4+ years in hardware test, validation, or reliability engineering on robotic, vehicle, or electromechanical systems.

Track record designing and building your own test rigs and fixtures, with the CAD and GD&T fluency to do it, not just running someone else’s.

Instrumentation and DAQ depth: load cells, strain gauges, thermocouples, accelerometers, and the setup techniques that make a measurement trustworthy.

Strong mechanical engineering fundamentals and structured root cause methods (8D, 5‑Why, teardown, or equivalent) that go past reporting a failure to correcting it.

Accelerated life and durability test experience.

Python or equivalent scripting for test automation and data analysis.

Judgment to know when a scrappy rig is good enough and when to build the real thing, with high ownership, a bias for speed, and comfort with ambiguity.

Nice to have

Experience standing up a test function from zero.

Reliability statistics (Weibull, MTBF, sample sizing, confidence intervals) and tools such as Weibull++ or JMP.

Structural static and fatigue testing.

Field test and commissioning experience on outdoor or heavy equipment.