Senior Staff Hardware Test Automation Engineer

Lightmatter; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Commuter benefit

401(K)

Happy hour

Generous vacation policy and holidays

Learn from peers

Job summary

Lightmatter in Mountain View, CA is seeking a Hardware Test Automation Engineer to design and implement test software for automated device bring-up, characterization, and production testing across bench and ATE environments.

You will collaborate with hardware and characterization teams to translate device physics into repeatable test software and build data pipelines to capture and analyze results. Senior staff will mentor others and drive cross-functional technical decisions.

Qualifications

• Deep hands-on experience with ATE test method/test flow development and embedded test frameworks.
• Track record of owning test software architecture across a product line.
• Experience integrating ATE with wafer-level hardware (probers/handlers) is a strong plus.
• Comfortable reading embedded software/C firmware at hardware/software boundary.
• Mentoring engineers and driving cross-functional technical decisions.

Responsibilities

• Design and build test software that automates device bring-up, characterization, and production test sequences across bench and ATE environments.
• Develop and maintain test methods, test flows, and instrument control code.
• Work directly with hardware and characterization engineers to translate device physics and test requirements into repeatable test software.
• Build and maintain data logging and results pipelines so test data is captured accurately and usable downstream.
• Debug test hardware/software integration issues, across device under test, fixture, instrument, and test code to find root cause.
• Support test program releases to internal test cells and, at senior levels, to external test facilities.
• Communicate daily with the team on progress and blockers, and spend regular time in the lab working hands-on with hardware.

Skills

ATE Development

Test Automation

C/C++

Firmware Interfaces

Instrumentation Automation

Python/Java

Data Pipelines

Wafer-level Testing

Mentoring

Education

Bachelor in CS/EE

Master or PhD +3 years

Tools

SCPI/VISA

Job description

• As a Hardware Test Automation Engineer you’ll have the opportunity to work across some combination of: an internal test software framework (Java/Python-based), industry-standard ATE test method and testflow development, wafer prober integration, instrument control (optical and electrical sources, meters, sensors), embedded/firmware interfaces on the hardware side, and data pipelines from lab equipment to structured results
• Learn the hardware you’re automating well enough to make informed software decisions about it
• Design and build test software that automates device bring-up, characterization, and production test sequences across bench and ATE environments
• Develop and maintain test methods, test flows, and instrument control code depending on level and project while writing code and reviewing code are both daily parts of the role
• Work directly with hardware and characterization engineers to understand their needs and translate device physics and test requirements into working, repeatable test software
• Build and maintain data logging and results pipelines so test data is captured accurately and usable downstream (metric computation, yield analysis, production handoff)
• Debug test hardware/software integration issues, working across the device under test, the fixture, the instrument, and the test code to find root cause
• Support test program releases to internal test cells and, at senior levels, to external test facilities
• Communicate daily with the team on progress and blockers, and spend regular time in the lab working hands-on with hardware

Benefits

• Commuter benefit
• 401(K)
• Happy hour -Spend time together and build friendships
• Generous vacation policy and holidays
• Opportunity to learn from your peers and teach them what you know across electronics, photonics, machine learning, and more

• Deep hands-on experience with ATE test method/test flow development and/or embedded test frameworks for hardware test automation, plus fluency with instrumentation automation (SCPI/VISA or equivalent) at a level where you can teach it to others
• Can articulate, end to end, how they scoped, planned, implemented, and validated an automation project
• Track record of owning test software architecture for a product line, including decisions on how the framework scales across projects and teams
• 8+ years of experience in hardware test software, ATE systems, or test architecture, ideally in semiconductor or photonics
• Comfortable working at the hardware/software boundary — reading and reasoning about embedded software (C/C++), controls, or firmware well enough to co-develop directly with the engineers who own it
• History of mentoring engineers and driving cross-functional technical decisions with hardware, characterization, and manufacturing teams
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or related field
• Experience integrating ATE with wafer-level hardware (probers, handlers) is a strong plus
• Experience with photonic test instrumentation
• Master’s/PhD with 3+ years, of experience in hardware test software, ATE systems, or test architecture, ideally in semiconductor or photonics