Sr. Test and Integration Engineer - High Compute ECUs

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is seeking an experienced engineer to join the RVTech team developing automated test systems for high‑compute ECUs, infotainment head units, and ADAS compute platforms. You will design and deploy test equipment, emulate peripherals, and validate electrical and thermal behavior in reliability labs and at contract manufacturers.

You will work cross‑functionally to implement test sequences in Python, integrate firmware, hardware, and software, and drive test

Qualifications

• BS/MS or equivalent work experience in Electrical, Electronics, or Computer Engineering.
• 5+ years of relevant experience designing automated test equipment (ATE) for electronics.
• Hands-on experience with infotainment/ADAS compute platforms or similar SoC products.
• Experience with high-speed interfaces (camera serdes, USB, PCIe, Ethernet) in a test context.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of automated test solutions for ECUs and reliability labs.
• Design automated test equipment for high-speed interfaces and peripherals.
• Develop test sequences in Python within our automation framework.
• Integrate firmware, hardware, and software end-to-end for DUT bring-up and production test.
• Build reliability test capabilities including HALT/HASS, thermal cycling, and burn-in.

Skills

ATE design

Python scripting

Test automation

High-speed interfaces

Hardware integration

Education

BS/MS in Electrical Engineering

Tools

GR&R

CPK

Oscilloscopes

Programmable power supplies

DMMs

Logic analyzers

Job description

About Us

Rivian and Volkswagen Group Technologies is a joint venture between two industry leaders with a clear vision for automotive’s next chapter. From operating systems to zonal controllers to cloud and connectivity solutions, we’re addressing the challenges of electric vehicles through technology that will set the standards for software-defined vehicles around the world.

The road to the future is uncharted. By combining our expertise across connectivity, AI, security and more, we’ll map a new way forward. Working together, we’ll create a future that’s more connected, more intelligent, more sustainable for everyone.

Role Summary

In this role, you will be part of the team that develops automated test systems for RVTech's high-compute electronic control units (ECUs) — including infotainment head units, cockpit domain controllers, and Level 3+ ADAS compute platforms. These ECUs are defined by SoC-class silicon, high-speed serial interfaces, large memory and storage subsystems, multi-gigabit camera and display links, significant thermal loads, and complex boot and software stacks. Validating them requires test solutions that can exercise real interfaces at speed, measure electrical and thermal behavior accurately, and run reliably in both long-duration reliability labs and high-volume production.

Our team's solutions include internal-facing software, low-level firmware, data management platforms, and custom electromechanical and high-speed interface hardware. These solutions get deployed internally within RVTech, at contract manufacturing facilities, and at the brand's vehicle factories.

You will be an individual contributor with a multi-disciplinary role leading the implementation of vertical ECU test solutions for design characterization, reliability, and manufacturing. You will be designing the equipment that characterizes these compute units under stress and screens them at rate on the factory floor, using emulated loads and instrumented interfaces in place of real vehicle peripherals.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of automated test solutions for infotainment and ADAS compute ECUs, from test requirements through deployment at RVTech reliability labs and at contract manufacturers.
• Design and build automated test equipment for high-speed interfaces at the ECU connector: camera serdes inputs (GMSL, FPD-Link), display serdes outputs (LVDS, eDP, DisplayPort, HDMI), USB, PCIe, high-speed Automotive Ethernet (100BASE-T1/1000BASE-T1/multi-gig), and debug interfaces (JTAG, UART, SWD).
• Build test capability that emulates the ECU's peripherals rather than using them — serdes deserializer/serializer boards, video stream injection into camera inputs, capture and integrity checking of the ECU's display output stream, and load emulation for connected devices — so that test coverage stays on the compute unit and stays viable at production cycle time.
• Build test capability for the ECU's audio subsystem: amplifier output verification into emulated speaker loads, microphone input stimulus and capture, THD and SNR measurement, and channel routing checks.
• Design characterization and screening for power and thermal behavior: multi-rail power sequencing, rail voltage and current measurement, inrush, power-state transitions (sleep/suspend/wake), quiescent current, thermal throttling behavior, and heatsink/TIM interface verification.
• Own boot, flash, and provisioning flows in test: bootloader and image flashing at speed, multi-image software loading, secure boot and key provisioning, eMMC/UFS/NVMe programming and health checks, MAC/serial/identity writing, and end-of-line configuration.
• Develop custom test sequences in Python following software engineering best practices and our standard automation framework, using AI coding agents to accelerate development while owning code quality, review, and validation.
• Integrate firmware, hardware, and software end-to-end — DUT bring-up, production test modes, on-target test agents and diagnostic services, log capture and parsing, and instrument control layers.
• Build test solutions for reliability lab settings (HALT/HASS, thermal cycling and shock, humidity, vibration, life test, long-duration soak, power cycling, and burn-in) including automated stress sequencing, in-situ monitoring, and failure capture.
• Build test solutions for high-volume manufacturing with attention to cycle time, parallel test, station replication, and correlation across stations and sites — including strategies for keeping test time reasonable on ECUs with long boot times.
• Implement fault injection and stress coverage: brownout and power interrupt during boot and flash, thermal excursions, interface disconnect/reconnect, memory and storage stress, and verification of the ECU's diagnostic and recovery response.
• Create well documented test cases, calibration procedures, and operating procedures for test systems.
• Lead the deployment process of test equipment using GR&R, CPK, stress test, and fault injection at contract manufacturers and at RVTech.
• Work with validation, reliability, EMC, quality, and product launch teams to ensure test solutions meet their requirements.

Qualifications

• BS/MS or equivalent work experience in Electrical, Electronics, or Computer Engineering.
• 5+ years of relevant working experience designing automated test equipment (ATE) for electronics, with meaningful time spent on compute-class or high-speed digital products.
• Hands-on experience testing at least one of: infotainment/head units, cockpit domain controllers, ADAS compute platforms, embedded compute modules, or comparable SoC-based products.
• Experience with high-speed serial interfaces in a test context — camera serdes, display serdes, USB, PCIe, or multi-gig Ethernet — including the practical realities of cabling, connectors, signal integrity, and link margin on the factory floor.
• Experience with test instrumentation such as programmable DC power supplies and electronic loads, precision DMMs, high-bandwidth oscilloscopes and probes, protocol/bus analyzers, audio analyzers, serdes evaluation and capture