Senior Test Engineer, Instrument Software & Systems

Illumina; San Diego (CA); Hybrid; USD 108,000 - 162,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health/dental/vision

Retirement benefits

Paid time off

Genomics sequencing access

Job summary

Illumina is seeking a Senior Software Test Engineer to own test strategy and verification for software subsystems on DNA sequencing instruments, collaborating with software, firmware, and hardware teams in a regulated environment.

The role focuses on hands-on testing, test-plan development, and risk-based verification across functional, integration, and system levels in a hybrid on-site setting at Illumina’s California facility.

Qualifications

• Five or more years of professional experience in software quality engineering, instrument software testing, embedded-system testing, or related discipline.
• Experience with functional, integration, system, and regression testing.
• Experience independently developing test strategies, test plans, and detailed test cases from technical requirements.
• Experience owning feature- or subsystem-level verification, including requirements traceability and verification evidence.
• Familiarity with defect tracking and requirements management platforms such as Jira and Jama.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the test owner for assigned software features or subsystems.
• Participate in requirements, design and planning activities to identify quality risks and improve testability.
• Define risk-based verification coverage across functional, integration, system, and regression testing.
• Develop test plans, test cases, and test procedures from product, system, and software requirements.
• Perform hands-on testing and feature integration on DNA sequencing instruments in a laboratory environment.
• Work closely with cross-functional stakeholders to test workflows and address quality risks and release-ready concerns.
• Validate workflows spanning user interfaces, backend services, hardware abstraction software, firmware, simulators, and physical instrument hardware.
• Perform root cause analysis with software, firmware, hardware, systems integration, and quality teams.
• Provide technical guidance to supporting engineers and contribute to improvements in team testing practices.
• Work within established software-development, quality, and requirements-management processes for regulated products.

Skills

Software testing

Quality engineering

Test strategy

Jira

Jama

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, or related field

Tools

Jira

Jama

Linux

Cursor (AI tool)

Job description

Illumina is seeking a Senior Software Test Engineer to own test strategy and verification for software subsystems on DNA sequencing instruments, collaborating with software, firmware, and hardware teams in a regulated environment.

The role focuses on hands-on testing, test-plan development, and risk-based verification across functional, integration, and system levels in a hybrid on-site setting at Illumina’s California facility.