Robotics Hardware Test Engineer — End-to-End Reliability

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 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