Senior ECU Electronics Design & Validation Engineer

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity (RSUs)

Health coverage

Retirement savings

Paid time off

Family planning programs

Job summary

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies seeks a senior electronics verification engineer in Palo Alto to drive module-level validation for infotainment ECUs. You will review schematics, develop test plans, and characterize power integrity, RF performance, and high-speed interfaces across complex boards.

You will lead bench-level testing, write automation scripts in Python, and apply AI tools to analyze large datasets, guiding design decisions and test strategies.

Qualifications

• BS/MS or equivalent work experience in Electrical Engineering or related field.
• 7+ years of experience in electronics design, characterization and validation testing.
• Experience using lab instrumentation like high-bandwidth oscilloscopes and probes, VNA, BERT, power supplies, electronic loads, digital multimeters, DAQ, source measure units, current probes, and switch matrices.
• Hands-on experience with spectrum analyzers, vector signal analyzers/generators, or wireless connectivity testers (LitePoint, R&S CMW/CMX, Anritsu, or equivalent).
• Strong understanding of Electrical Engineering fundamentals and circuit analysis.
• Practical understanding of power and signal integrity fundamentals for high-compute hardware: multi-rail sequencing, PDN impedance and decoupling, transient response, impedance-controlled routing, jitter and eye margin, thermal resistance and throttling, and measurement uncertainty.
• Working understanding of RF fundamentals: path loss and cable/fixture calibration, VSWR and return loss, shielding and isolation, and conducted vs. OTA measurement tradeoffs.
• Experience in scripting and data analysis using Python.
• Demonstrated use of AI tools to write and refactor test code and to analyze characterization data, with sound judgment about where AI-generated work needs human verification.

Responsibilities

• Develop detailed design verification and characterization test plans and test requirements for all phases of ECU programs, with input from reliability, design, RF, and firmware teams.
• Execute characterization testing plans according to project milestones.
• Own test coverage reports and analysis.
• Perform bench-level characterization at IC and PCBA levels, including multi-rail power sequencing and PMIC behavior, rail transient response and ripple, load step response, inrush, power-state transitions (sleep/suspend/wake), quiescent and standby current, brownout and power-interrupt thresholds, and thermal throttling behavior.
• Characterize high-speed interfaces at the ECU connector: camera and display serdes links, USB, PCIe, Automotive Ethernet, and debug interfaces — including eye diagrams, jitter, BER, link margin, and link training behavior over voltage and temperature.
• Characterize the conducted RF performance of integrated radios — Wi‑Fi, Bluetooth/BLE, cellular, UWB, NFC, and GNSS — covering TX power and spectral quality, RX sensitivity, spurious emissions, and desense/coexistence between radios and against on-board noise.
• Lead the power integrity and coexistence/desense characterization efforts for InfoConn ECUs, including correlation of measured behavior back to design intent and layout.
• Characterize protection and fault behavior: over-voltage and under-voltage, reverse polarity, load dump, interface short and disconnect conditions, storage and memory stress, and verification that the ECU reports the correct diagnostics and recovers as designed.
• Provide early feedback to design engineers regarding design decisions, testability, test point access, and instrumentation hooks needed for characterization.
• Support creation and present Design for Testability reports for ECU designs.
• Follow characterization schedules and communicate status with upper management and cross-functional teams.
• Write automation scripts and instrumentation drivers to speed up characterization testing using Python, using AI coding agents to accelerate development while owning code quality, review, and validation.
• Leverage AI tooling to analyze characterization datasets at scale and turn findings into design/test recommendations with human-verified judgment.
• Work with software engineers to flash, test, and troubleshoot firmware, including bootloaders and multi-image software loads.
• Participate in root-causing non-compliance test results and drive closure with partners.

Skills

Electrical Engineering

Electronics design

Lab instrumentation

RF testing

Power integrity

Signal integrity

RF fundamentals

Python scripting

AI tooling

Firmware testing

Education

BS/MS in Electrical Engineering

Tools

Oscilloscopes

VNA

BERT/DAU/digital multimeters

Power supplies

DAQ

Job description

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies seeks a senior electronics verification engineer in Palo Alto to drive module-level validation for infotainment ECUs. You will review schematics, develop test plans, and characterize power integrity, RF performance, and high-speed interfaces across complex boards.

You will lead bench-level testing, write automation scripts in Python, and apply AI tools to analyze large datasets, guiding design decisions and test strategies.