Senior Electrical Engineer, Test

Atomic Machines; Emeryville (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Atomic Machines is seeking a Senior Test Development Engineer in Emeryville/Santa Clara, CA to define and own testing for novel micromachines built by the Matter Compiler™ platform.

You will lead test strategy development, build custom hardware and software, and collaborate with Design, Go-To-Market, and Production to validate and refine devices through first-principles testing and data-driven decisions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or Physics is required; a PhD is strongly preferred.
• Extensive experience in circuit/design validation and test engineering principles.
• Hands-on lab work with soldering, debugging, and prototype builds.
• Experience turning ambiguous specs into measurable test criteria.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end test development: define requirements, architect solutions, build systems, and deploy them into production.
• Design test strategies from first principles for devices without existing validation frameworks.
• Develop error budgets and measurement approaches for precision sensing and device characterization.
• Make system-level tradeoffs between accuracy, throughput, cost, and scalability.
• Architect and build custom instrumentation, including PCB design, firmware, and mechanical fixtures.
• Document test systems, interfaces, and procedures for reliable handoff to production.

Skills

Circuit design

Instrumentation development

Test engineering

PCB layout

Analog/mixed-signal design

Microcontroller programming (C)

Documentation

Lab skills

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or Physics

PhD strongly preferred

Tools

PCB design tools

Electronic test equipment

Job description

Atomic Machines is ushering in a new era of micromanufacturing with its Matter Compiler™ technology. This full-stack technology enables new classes of micromachines to be designed and built by offering manufacturing processes and a materials library that is inaccessible to semiconductor manufacturing methods. It promises to unlock MEMS manufacturing for the many device classes frustrated by semiconductor methods and to open up entirely new product classes. The Matter Compiler™ technology fully realizes the digital manufacturing dream: bits and raw materials go in, and complete, functional micromachines come out. The Atomic Machines team has also created an exciting first device – one that was only made possible by the existence of the Matter CompilerTM technology – that we will be unveiling to the world soon.

Our offices are in Emeryville and Santa Clara, California.

About The Role:

We are seeking a Senior Test Development Engineer to define and own how Atomic Machines validates entirely new classes of devices. At Atomic Machines, we are building a novel robotic manufacturing platform—the Matter Compiler™—from the ground up. This enables us to explore entirely new materials and processes, making possible a class of devices that cannot be fabricated in conventional fab environments. From a test perspective, this means there is often no existing playbook. You will help develop test strategies for novel devices where requirements are still evolving and existing validation approaches often do not apply. Success requires building first-principles models, identifying error sources, and making tradeoffs between accuracy, throughput, cost, and scalability. You will be expected to lead the definition of test strategy for new devices, not just execute on predefined test plans.

As part of the test group, you will work on complex multidisciplinary problems. You will have the opportunity to define novel tests from initial specifications through initial design, design and build custom hardware, and integrate it into a complete system. Test development includes mechanical fixturing, circuit board design, firmware development, integration of existing equipment, and contributing to how test data is collected, validated, and used to inform engineering and manufacturing decisions—defining how data is collected, validated, stored, and interpreted to inform product performance, failure analysis, and manufacturing decisions. You will work closely with colleagues from Device Design, Go-To-Market, and Production to specify, implement, and validate tests.

In addition to a strong electrical engineering background, the ideal candidate will bring strong first principles thinking, creativity, and a generalist mindset. There are typically multiple approaches to developing any test, and navigating design/fabrication/results tradeoffs is where someone with a first principles approach will excel.

We do not expect candidates to have deep expertise across every area relevant to the role. Strong candidates often bring depth in areas such as instrumentation, embedded systems, analog electronics, automation, or test development, along with curiosity and the ability to learn quickly across disciplines.

What You'll Do:

• Own end-to-end test development: define requirements, architect solutions, build systems, and deploy them into production
• Design test strategies from first principles for devices without existing validation frameworks
• Develop error budgets and measurement approaches for precision sensing and device characterization
• Make system-level tradeoffs between accuracy, throughput, cost, and scalability
• Architect and build custom instrumentation, including PCB design, firmware, and mechanical fixtures
• Document test systems, interfaces, and operating procedures to enable reliable handoff to production, reproducibility of results, and long-term maintainability
• Integrate test systems into automated production environments, ensuring robustness and scalability
• Partner with Device, Manufacturing, and Product teams to translate ambiguous requirements into measurable specifications and challenge assumptions
• Drive improvements in test reliability, data quality, and production throughput

What You'll Need:

• 5+ years of experience in circuit design, instrumentation development, or test engineering
• Demonstrated experience in full board development from initial circuit concepts through PCB layout, including defining specifications, validating functionality at the schematic level, and executing PCB layout
• Deep understanding of analog and mixed-signal circuit design
• Experience implementing analog system control using microcontrollers
• Ability to develop microcontroller code in C
• Strong documentation skills for clear hardware handoff to system-integration teams
• Proficiency with standard electronic test equipment
• Experience developing instrumentation, including constructing and managing error budgets
• Solid hands-on lab skills, including soldering, hardware build/test, and iterative refinement
• A first-principles mindset — you question assumptions, reframe problems from the ground up, and approach challenges with a foundational understanding rather than relying solely on precedent
• Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or Physics. A PhD in a hard science or engineering discipline is strongly preferred
• Experience developing test plans from ambiguous requirements, including defining specifications, measurement approaches, error sources, and success criteria
• Demonstrated ability to reason about and make engineering tradeoffs (e.g., accuracy vs speed, noise vs architecture, modularity vs robustness)

Bonus Points For:

• High current (500A+) or high voltage (1kV+) systems experience
• Experience developing with the STM32 microcontroller platform
• Experience with reliability or environmental test systems