Hybrid Staff Hardware Test Automation Engineer

Lightmatter, Inc.; Mountain View (CA); Hybrid; USD 167,000 - 227,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Retirement Savings Matching Program

Life Insurance

Generous Time Off

Paid Family Leave

Disability Insurance

Training & Development

Hybrid workplace model

Equity grants

Job summary

Lightmatter is shaping the future of AI data center hardware in Mountain View, CA. We seek a Staff/Sr.

Hardware Test Automation Engineer to design and implement test software for device bring-up, characterization, and production testing across bench and ATE systems. You will collaborate with hardware and characterization engineers, develop test methods, and build data pipelines for reliable, actionable results.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or related field.
• 8+ years of experience in hardware test software, ATE systems, or test architecture, ideally in semiconductor or photonics.
• Track record of owning test software architecture for a product line, including decisions on how the framework scales across projects and teams.
• Deep hands-on experience with ATE test method/test flow development and/or embedded test frameworks for hardware test automation, plus fluency with instrumentation automation (SCPI/VISA or equivalent).
• History of mentoring engineers and driving cross-functional technical decisions with hardware, characterization, and manufacturing teams.
• Can articulate, end to end, how they scoped, planned, implemented, and validated an automation project.
• Comfortable working at the hardware/software boundary — reading and reasoning about embedded software (C/C++), controls, or firmware well enough to co-develop directly with the engineers who own it.

Responsibilities

• Learn the hardware you're automating well enough to make informed software decisions about it.
• Design and build test software that automates device bring-up, characterization, and production test sequences across bench and ATE environments.
• Develop and maintain test methods, test flows, and instrument control code depending on level and project while writing code and reviewing code are both daily parts of the role.
• Work directly with hardware and characterization engineers to understand their needs and translate device physics and test requirements into working, repeatable test software.
• Build and maintain data logging and results pipelines so test data is captured accurately and usable downstream (metric computation, yield analysis, production handoff).
• Debug test hardware/software integration issues, working across the device under test, the fixture, the instrument, and the test code to find root cause.
• Support test program releases to internal test cells and, at senior levels, to external test facilities.
• Communicate daily with the team on progress and blockers, and spend regular time in the lab working hands-on with hardware.

Skills

Instrumentation automation (SCPI/VISA)

C/C++ / Embedded

Test software architecture

Mentoring engineers

Data pipelines

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/EE

Master's/PhD (preferred)

Tools

ATE systems

Wafer prober integration

SCPI/VISA instruments

Job description

Lightmatter is shaping the future of AI data center hardware in Mountain View, CA. We seek a Staff/Sr.

Hardware Test Automation Engineer to design and implement test software for device bring-up, characterization, and production testing across bench and ATE systems. You will collaborate with hardware and characterization engineers, develop test methods, and build data pipelines for reliable, actionable results.