Robotics Systems Test Engineer

Lightwheel; California (MO); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive Medical Insurance

Dental & Vision Insurance

401(k) with company match

Learning & Development budget

Relocation assistance

Job summary

Lightwheel is seeking a robotics validation engineer to own the validation framework for embodied robotics, covering both simulation and real-robot deployment. You will define smoke test plans, design functional validation scenarios, and establish quality metrics to ensure release readiness.

You will maintain scenario libraries and regression suites while collaborating with algorithm, simulation, system, controls, hardware, and data teams to drive issues to resolution and continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in robotics functional testing, system testing, simulation testing, or autonomous systems / robotics validation workflows.
• Strong capability in test strategy and release validation design; able to independently define smoke tests, functional tests, regression suites, and acceptance criteria.
• Familiarity with at least one robotics platform or simulation environment (e.g., robotic arms, mobile robots, Isaac Sim, Gazebo).
• Comfortable working in a Linux environment with debugging, system diagnostics, troubleshooting, log analysis, and test scripting.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills; able to drive cross-team efforts toward issue resolution with a strong quality mindset.

Responsibilities

• Own the validation framework for embodied robotics, spanning simulation and real-robot deployment.
• Define simulation and real-robot smoke test plans to ensure release readiness and system stability.
• Design comprehensive functional validation plans with test scenarios, cases, execution procedures, and acceptance criteria.
• Establish and continuously refine quality metrics such as task success rate, failure rate, and motion stability.
• Maintain scenario libraries and regression validation suites to support reproducibility and release gating.
• Collaborate across algorithm, simulation, system, controls, hardware, and data teams to drive issues to resolution.

Skills

Robotics testing

Test strategy

Linux debugging

Python scripting

Tools

ROS/ROS2

DDS

CyberRT

Job description

• Own the validation framework for embodied robotics, spanning simulation and physical robot deployment across manipulation, mobile navigation, grasping, picking & sorting, and human-robot interaction.
• Define simulation and real-robot smoke test plans to establish release readiness and system stability before model, algorithm, and software version releases.
• Design comprehensive functional validation plans, including test scenarios, test cases, execution procedures, acceptance criteria, failure handling, recovery behaviors, and edge-case validation.
• Establish and continuously refine quality metrics — task success rate, completion time, intervention rate, failure rate, collision rate, drop rate, motion stability, robot reliability, system robustness, and performance consistency.
• Maintain the scenario library and regression validation suites, supporting issue reproduction, version regression, release gating, and quality assessment.
• Collaborate across algorithm, simulation, system, controls, hardware, and data teams to drive issues to resolution, verify fixes, and close the feedback loop for continuous improvement.

Requirements

• Proven experience in robotics functional testing, system testing, simulation testing, or autonomous systems / robotics validation workflows.
• Solid understanding of the robot autonomy pipeline — perception, planning, control, execution, feedback, and data logging.
• Strong capability in test strategy and release validation design; able to independently define smoke tests, functional tests, regression suites, and acceptance criteria.
• Familiarity with at least one robotics platform or simulation environment (e.g., robotic arms, mobile robots, Isaac Sim, Gazebo).
• Comfortable working in a Linux environment with debugging, system diagnostics, troubleshooting, log analysis, and test scripting.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills; able to drive cross-team efforts toward issue resolution with a strong quality mindset.

Nice-to-Have

• Hands-on experience validating embodied robots, robotic arms, mobile robots, humanoid robots, or autonomous driving systems.
• Experience in release validation, deployment validation, and quality infrastructure beyond simulation and real-robot testing.
• Familiarity with ROS / ROS2, DDS, CyberRT, or other robotics middleware.
• Proficiency in Python / Shell for building automated validation pipelines, regression automation, CI workflows, and test infrastructure.
• Proven track record of building a robotics quality system, validation framework, or automation infrastructure from 0 to 1.
• Comprehensive Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• 401(k) with company match
• Career growth opportunities and a dedicated Learning & Development budget
• Relocation assistance