Senior Principal AI Test Automation Engineer

advantestcareers; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Advantest is seeking a Senior Principal AI Test Automation Engineer to design and deliver reliable automation for complex engineering and production test environments.

You will build repeatable systems that validate, execute, monitor, and diagnose technical workloads across laboratory and production environments. This role blends advanced test engineering with modern software architecture and requires hands‑on leadership across teams.

Qualifications

• Extensive automation experience for advanced test or measurement systems.
• Strong digital and mixed-signal test-engineering experience.
• Proven ownership of CI/CD systems (Jenkins, GitLab CI, or similar).
• Understanding of test programs, instruments, limits, and result data.
• Strong Python and software-architecture skills.
• Experience integrating software with hardware and lab environments.
• Ability to lead architecture decisions and solve complex problems at Senior Principal level.
• Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Architect production‑grade test automation and CI/CD pipelines.
• Automate build, validation, execution, artifact collection, analysis, and release gating.
• Integrate AI‑generated recommendations into engineered workflows.
• Define validation and approval gates before automated actions interact with hardware.
• Build interfaces between AI systems, test software, instruments, and data services.
• Develop failure classification, diagnostics, recovery, and escalation processes.
• Create reproducible environments using containers and versioned configurations.
• Establish observability, regression testing, and evidence‑based release criteria.
• Mentor engineers and set technical standards for automation and production readiness.

Skills

Python

CI/CD

Test automation

Software architecture

Leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

AI/ML integration

Tools

Jenkins

GitLab CI

Containers

Version control

APIs

Structured schemas

Job description

Advantest is seeking a Senior Principal AI Test Automation Engineer to design and deliver reliable automation for complex engineering and production test environments.

This role combines advanced test engineering, software automation, CI/CD, and AI-enabled workflows. You will build repeatable systems that validate, execute, monitor, and diagnose technical workloads across laboratory and production environments.

We are looking for a hands‑on technical leader who understands both physical test systems and modern software architecture.

Key Responsibilities

• Architect production‑grade test automation and CI/CD pipelines.
• Automate build, validation, execution, artifact collection, analysis, and release gating.
• Integrate AI‑generated recommendations into controlled engineering workflows.
• Define validation and approval gates before automated actions interact with hardware.
• Build structured interfaces between AI systems, test software, instruments, and data services.
• Develop failure classification, diagnostics, recovery, and escalation processes.
• Create reproducible execution environments using containers and version controlled configurations.
• Establish observability, regression testing, and evidence‑based release criteria.
• Mentor engineers and set technical standards for automation and production readiness.

Required Qualifications

• Extensive experience developing automation for advanced test or measurement systems.
• Strong digital and mixed‑signal test‑engineering experience.
• Proven ownership of CI/CD systems using Jenkins, GitLab CI, or similar platforms.
• Strong understanding of test programs, specifications, patterns, instruments, limits, characterization, and result data.
• Strong Python and software‑architecture skills.
• Experience with typed APIs, structured schemas, automated testing, and version control.
• Experience integrating software with hardware, instruments, or laboratory environments.
• Ability to lead architecture decisions and solve ambiguous technical problems at Senior Principal level.
• Strong communication and cross‑functional collaboration skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience integrating AI or machine‑learning capabilities into engineering systems.
• Familiarity with AI agents, structured actions, evaluation gates, or human approval workflows.
• Experience with containerized applications, automated characterization, and multi‑version execution environments.
• Experience working in secure or intellectual‑property‑sensitive environments.
• Familiarity with Java or other hardware‑control and test‑development languages.

What Success Looks Like

During the first year, you will:

• Deliver a trusted and repeatable automated test‑execution pipeline.
• Establish clear validation, observability, and failure‑diagnosis standards.
• Integrate AI‑assisted recommendations into controlled and measurable workflows.
• Reduce manual processes and convert expert knowledge into reusable automation.
• Build a foundation that can support future projects through configuration rather than one‑off development.

Ideal Candidate

You are a deeply technical test engineer who also thinks like a software architect. You understand that automation must produce reliable evidence—not simply a successful pipeline result.

You can connect AI capabilities to real engineering environments while maintaining validation, traceability, safety controls, and expert oversight.