Staff Engineer, Hardware system test

Salt; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Salt Digital Recruitment is seeking a Staff Engineer, Hardware System Test to lead system-level testing of complex hardware products across mechanical, hydraulic, electrical, embedded firmware, and software interfaces. You will own the test strategy, planning, and execution, and drive validation to meet safety and regulatory requirements.

This hands-on leadership role focuses on NPI and sustaining engineering, with emphasis on automated testing, HIL, and scalable test infrastructure.

Qualifications

• Strong hands-on experience defining and executing system-level testing and validation strategies.
• Experience with complex products that integrate multiple domains (mechanical, electrical, software, firmware).
• Expertise in verification/validation, test planning, coverage analysis, defect management, and RCA.

Responsibilities

• Lead the system-level test strategy for complex hardware products.
• Develop integration test plans, protocols, and validation methods.
• Define test scope based on requirements, architecture, risk, and use.
• Lead or oversee integration, regression, reliability, and release testing.
• Serve as the technical authority for system-test methods and results.
• Collaborate with engineering to define test scenarios and acceptance criteria.
• Partner with automation to enable hardware-in-the-loop testing.

Skills

System-level testing

Hardware validation

Cross-domain collaboration

Test planning

Root-cause analysis

Firmware/software collaboration

Technical leadership without mgmt

Python

LabVIEW

HIL testing

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical, Electronic, Mechanical, Systems, Computer Engineering, or related

Tools

Python

LabVIEW

HIL instrumentation

Job description

Position Summary

We are seeking a Staff Engineer, Hardware System Test to lead system-level testing and validation for complex, integrated hardware products. This role will own the strategy, planning, and execution of system testing across mechanical, hydraulic, electrical, electronic, embedded firmware, and software interfaces, ensuring products perform reliably and meet quality, safety, and regulatory requirements. The ideal candidate is a hands‑on technical leader with strong experience testing complex systems and the ability to bring together multiple engineering disciplines to solve challenging problems. This is an individual contributor / technical leadership role with significant influence across engineering teams. You will play a key role in both new product introduction (NPI) and sustaining engineering, helping define how products are tested, identifying gaps in validation, and improving test methods and infrastructure over time.

What You'll Do

System Test & Validation

• Lead the system-level test strategy for complex hardware products, including subsystem interactions, end-to-end functionality, reliability, performance, and compatibility.
• Develop system integration test plans, test protocols, coverage matrices, and validation methods for new and existing products.
• Define test scope based on product requirements, system architecture, risk, field performance, and intended use.
• Lead or oversee system integration, functional, regression, reliability, and release-readiness testing.
• Serve as a technical authority for system-test methods, coverage, readiness, and validation results.

Cross-Functional Engineering

• Work closely with systems, electrical/electronics, mechanical, hydraulic, firmware, software, and product engineering teams to understand system behavior and define effective test scenarios and acceptance criteria.
• Partner with software and firmware teams to validate interfaces, integration, system behavior, and defect resolution.
• Collaborate with automation engineers to identify opportunities for automated, repeatable, and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing.
• Provide technical guidance to test engineers and technicians on test methods, execution, and test infrastructure.

Troubleshooting & Continuous Improvement

• Lead complex troubleshooting and root-cause analysis involving hardware, firmware, software, and system-level interfaces.
• Identify test-coverage gaps and prioritize improvements to test methods, environments, fixtures, and infrastructure.
• Develop and improve system-test environments, test benches, instrumentation, simulation, and HIL capabilities where appropriate.
• Use field issues, customer feedback, operational data, and product performance to strengthen validation strategies and prevent future issues.
• Define and track system-test metrics such as coverage, execution status, defect trends, validation effectiveness, and release readiness.
• Ensure system-validation activities support applicable safety, regulatory, and certification requirements.

What We're Looking For

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical, Electronic, Mechanical, Systems, Computer Engineering, or a related engineering discipline.
• 8+ years of experience in system test, hardware validation, systems integration, or a similar multidisciplinary engineering environment.
• Strong hands‑on experience defining and executing system-level testing and validation strategies.
• Experience working with complex products that integrate multiple domains, such as mechanical, hydraulic, electrical, electronic, embedded firmware, and software systems.
• Ability to understand how different subsystems interact and determine how to effectively validate the complete product.
• Strong knowledge of verification and validation, test planning, coverage analysis, defect management, and root-cause analysis.
• Experience collaborating with firmware and software teams on system behavior, interfaces, integration, and troubleshooting.
• Ability to lead technical initiatives and influence decisions without direct management responsibility.
• Strong analytical, communication, documentation, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to work independently and collaborate effectively across multidisciplinary and global engineering teams.

Nice to Have

• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), simulation, automated testing, or test frameworks.
• Experience with Python, LabVIEW, or similar scripting/test automation tools.
• Experience testing electromechanical systems, industrial equipment, connected devices, fuel/energy systems, or other complex hardware products.
• Familiarity with safety, regulatory, and certification requirements such as EMC, UL, PCI, or related standards.
• Experience using field data and customer issues to improve product validation and quality.
• Experience working within global engineering organizations.

Why This Role

This is an opportunity to have a high level of technical ownership over how complex hardware products are validated. You'll work across multiple engineering disciplines, solve ambiguous system-level problems, and help shape testing strategies and infrastructure from NPI through sustaining engineering. If you enjoy understanding how an entire system works-not just one component-and figuring out how to prove that it works reliably, this role could be a strong fit.