Senior MEMS IMU Test Engineer – Validation & Automation

HRL Laboratories, LLC; Malibu (CA); On-site; USD 155,000 - 198,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision

401K match

PTO / Sick time

Gym facilities

Job summary

HRL Laboratories in California seeks an experienced engineer to lead end‑to‑end IMU evaluation and characterization, maturing hardware from R&D toward production. You will define test plans, build automated setups, and analyze data to identify drivers and drift behaviors.

Responsibilities include sustaining maturation activities, collaborating across disciplines, and preparing prototypes for external evaluation while maintaining configuration control and rigorous documentation.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s, master’s, or Ph.D. in a relevant field.
• 5+ years hands-on experience owning sensor development, including prototype bring up, hardware/firmware integration, performance validation, and schematic-level hardware design and debug.
• Experience managing production and test documentation as well as requirements validation and artifact production.
• Strong understanding of inertial sensor performance (bias, noise, stability) and their interaction with filtering and compensation algorithms.
• Experience with IMU test equipment (vibration systems, shock testers, rate tables, centrifuges, thermal chambers) and test automation/instrumentation interfaces.
• Proficiency with MATLAB, Python, LabVIEW, or similar for data analysis and automation.
• Strong hardware fundamentals (analog, digital, mixed signal, power).
• Working knowledge of microcontrollers/SoCs, ADCs/DACs, and serial interfaces (I2C, SPI, UART, CAN, Ethernet).

Responsibilities

• Lead end to end IMU evaluation and characterization tasks supporting prototyping, product development, and sustainment, with emphasis on maturing hardware for transition out of R&D
• Define and execute characterization strategies across environmental, dynamic, and operational conditions, including building and automating hands on test setups (temperature, vibration, shock)
• Analyze performance data to identify key drivers, validate models, and perform root cause investigations of anomalies, and drift behaviors.
• Drive sustaining and maturation activities, failure analysis, yield trends, and iterative improvement of prototypes and engineering builds
• Develop lab infrastructure and supporting scripts for evaluation, characterization, and validation of products; build automation frameworks in Python / MATLAB / Simulink
• Lead system level validation by defining test plans, developing pass/fail criteria, and ensuring release readiness through robust test coverage and reproducible results
• Partner cross functionally to ensure requirements flow down, system integration readiness, and technical documentation needed for smooth transition to low rate production
• Maintain configuration control, support engineering change processes, and prepare prototypes and early production IMUs for external evaluation and qualification

Skills

Sensor development

Prototype bring up

Hardware/firmware integration

Performance validation

Schematic design

Test automation

MATLAB

Python

Data analysis

Serial interfaces (I2C, SPI, UART, CAN

Education

Bachelor's/Master's/PhD in relevant field

Tools

MATLAB

Python

LabVIEW

Altium Designer

Xilinx Vivado

I2C/SPI/UART

Job description

HRL Laboratories in California seeks an experienced engineer to lead end‑to‑end IMU evaluation and characterization, maturing hardware from R&D toward production. You will define test plans, build automated setups, and analyze data to identify drivers and drift behaviors.

Responsibilities include sustaining maturation activities, collaborating across disciplines, and preparing prototypes for external evaluation while maintaining configuration control and rigorous documentation.