Test Engineer

Dover; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Ulysses seeks two Test Engineers to validate Mako underwater vehicles and Leviathan surface systems, ensuring readiness for deployment from bench to sea. You will own test design, measurements, acceptance criteria, and results while collaborating with mechanical, electrical, software, and operations teams.

You will build fixtures, collect data, write scripts for test setup and analysis, and develop regression tests to catch issues after changes.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience testing electromechanical products, robots, vehicles, or similar hardware, including investigating failures and establishing their causes.
• Strong engineering fundamentals. You can isolate a variable, measure the right thing, and produce a defensible result.
• Practical experience with lab instruments, sensors, and data acquisition. You're comfortable reading wiring diagrams, checking signals, and troubleshooting setups.
• Ability to script test automation and data analysis in Python or a comparable language, and use Linux tools and software logs.
• Careful records and clear communication that let another person repeat your procedure and understand the result.
• Comfort in workshops and aboard boats, with sound judgment about test hazards and when to stop.
• Availability to work on-site in San Francisco and travel domestically and internationally for tests and deployments.

Responsibilities

• Turn requirements into test plans with measurable acceptance criteria. Choose the right bench, tank, or sea test for each question.
• Build fixtures, instrumentation, and data collection tools with engineering teams. Check that measurements are trustworthy.
• Test power, communications, sensors, actuation, sealing, and endurance. Record operating conditions and the limits of each setup.
• Plan integrated tests for navigation, control, payloads, fault handling, and launch and recovery interfaces.
• Write scripts for test setup, data collection, and analysis. Build regression tests to catch failures after changes.
• Record hardware serial numbers, assembly revisions, firmware, software, calibration, and configuration so others can reproduce results.
• Prepare water tests with crews and technical operations. Agree responsibilities and stop conditions, and check logs cover the full run.
• Investigate mechanical, electrical, and software failures. Separate observations from possible causes, reproduce problems, and verify fixes with their owners.
• Report results, untested areas, and issues to address before the next release process or deployment. Make clear readiness recommendations.
• Help production develop acceptance procedures, fixtures, and instructions that make failures easy to detect and diagnose.

Skills

Electromechanical testing

Engineering fundamentals

Lab instruments & data acquisition

Python scripting

Clear documentation

Workshop & field testing

On-site SF travel

Tools

Linux

CAN bus / Ethernet

Data acquisition hardware

Job description

About us

Ulysses is building the autonomy platform for the ocean with mass-deployable, fully autonomous surface and subsea robots with dual-domain, read-and-write capabilities. Our oceans are in trouble; we’ve neglected them, and we allow bad actors to misuse them. Ulysses will manage our oceans effectively, persistently, and cheaply. We're developing autonomous surface and subsea drones, robotics, and AI systems to tackle critical challenges across nature, infrastructure, and maritime security. Our first product line is a suite of autonomous drones and attachments that makes restoring seagrass ecosystems cheaper and easier. We are currently working with governments in the US and Australia and leading environmental groups like The Nature Conservancy. We are a Series A company backed by top VCs such as Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

About the Role

We're hiring two Test Engineers to test Mako underwater vehicles, Leviathan surface systems, and the equipment that connects them. You'll establish performance and readiness for deployment, from components on a bench to complete missions at sea.

You'll own test design, measurements, acceptance criteria, and results. You'll build fixtures, analyse logs, and run water tests, working with mechanical, electrical, software, and technical operations teams to reproduce problems and verify fixes.

What You’ll Do

• Turn requirements into test plans with measurable acceptance criteria. Choose the right bench, tank, or sea test for each question.

• Build fixtures, instrumentation, and data collection tools with engineering teams. Check that measurements are trustworthy.

• Test power, communications, sensors, actuation, sealing, and endurance. Record operating conditions and the limits of each setup.

• Plan integrated tests for navigation, control, payloads, fault handling, and launch and recovery interfaces.

• Write scripts for test setup, data collection, and analysis. Build regression tests to catch failures after changes.

• Record hardware serial numbers, assembly revisions, firmware, software, calibration, and configuration so others can reproduce results.

• Prepare water tests with crews and technical operations. Agree responsibilities and stop conditions, and check logs cover the full run.

• Investigate mechanical, electrical, and software failures. Separate observations from possible causes, reproduce problems, and verify fixes with their owners.

• Report results, untested areas, and issues to address before the next release process or deployment. Make clear readiness recommendations.

• Help production develop acceptance procedures, fixtures, and instructions that make failures easy to detect and diagnose.

Requirements

• Hands-on experience testing electromechanical products, robots, vehicles, or similar hardware, including investigating failures and establishing their causes.

• Strong engineering fundamentals. You can isolate a variable, measure the right thing, and produce a defensible result.

• Practical experience with lab instruments, sensors, and data acquisition. You're comfortable reading wiring diagrams, checking signals, and troubleshooting setups.

• Ability to script test automation and data analysis in Python or a comparable language, and use Linux tools and software logs.

• Careful records and clear communication that let another person repeat your procedure and understand the result.

• Comfort in workshops and aboard boats, with sound judgment about test hazards and when to stop.

• Availability to work on-site in San Francisco and travel domestically and internationally for tests and deployments.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with marine robots, underwater connectors, pressure housings, or environmental and endurance testing.

• Experience with hardware-in-the-loop testing, simulation, automated test rigs, or production acceptance testing.

• Familiarity with navigation sensors, sonar, CAN or Ethernet communications, and the timing and calibration issues that affect integrated systems.

• Experience planning field trials and analysing noisy data from systems operating outside a controlled laboratory.