Firestorm

Senior Software QA Engineer, Avionics Platform

Firestorm
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26 days ago
San Diego, CA, USASenior

Base Salary

$140k - $185k/yr

Responsibilities

  • Own system testing for embedded Linux and RTOS avionics targets, identifying functional defects, timing issues, and regressions.
  • Plan and execute feature, bring-up, exploratory, protocol-regression, acceptance, and release-signoff testing.
  • Build and maintain HIL/SIL automation for drivers, middleware, sensors, buses, serial/CAN/Ethernet I/O, bootloader, power-cycle, and OTA workflows.
  • Create reproducible test rigs using power equipment, CAN analyzers, logic analyzers, GNSS and sensor simulators, and programmable RF links.
  • Validate degraded and fault conditions including jitter, clock drift, packet loss or duplication, bus contention, brownouts, hot-plug events, and watchdog resets.
  • Collect logs and metrics, create packet and log scrapers, and diagnose issues using protocol traces, Wireshark, and serial/TCP/UDP sniffers.
  • Own defect reproduction, triage, reporting, and closure with responsible engineering teams.
  • Review code and IDLs for testability and promote deterministic testing, dependency hygiene, feature flags, and golden datasets.
  • Integrate hardware runners, smoke tests, protocol gates, regression suites, and firmware artifact validation into CI/CD.
  • Support safety, security, reliability, fuzzing, parser negative testing, permission audits, and fail-safe behavior aligned with applicable standards.
  • Produce test plans, procedures, bench checklists, and bring-up documentation, and mentor engineers on embedded QA automation.

Requirements

  • Bachelor’s degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
  • At least 5 years of professional QA/SDET experience, including automation for embedded, real-time, or safety-critical systems.
  • Hands-on experience testing embedded Linux and/or RTOS platforms and driver/HAL layers over UART, SPI, I²C, CAN-FD, and Ethernet.
  • Practical Python test automation experience using pytest, Robot, or equivalent to control benches over serial, CAN, or Ethernet.
  • Comfort with C/C++ artifacts and host-based unit testing with gtest.
  • Experience validating networked real-time systems, MAVLink, DDS, WebSockets, asynchronous I/O, and telemetry over constrained or lossy links.
  • Proficiency with Linux and Windows test environments, CLI tooling, Python, Bash, PowerShell, and Git.
  • Experience integrating tests into GitLab CI, Jenkins, or GitHub Actions and working with firmware packaging, bootloaders, and OTA updates.
  • Strong exploratory testing, defect isolation, written communication, and scenario-design skills.
  • U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. Government security clearance.
  • Preferred experience includes HIL/SIL design, sensor and bus emulation, fault injection, golden-trace comparison, PX4, ArduPilot, uORB, QGroundControl, STANAG 4586, Cursor-on-Target, DDS/RTPS, CAN diagnostics, radios, GNSS, IMUs, payload interfaces, electronics lab equipment, performance and reliability testing, DO-178C, DO-160, MIL-STD-810, MIL-STD-461, Yocto, Buildroot, Docker, Podman, TestRail, and Jira.

Benefits

  • Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans.
  • 401(k) retirement savings plan.
  • Unlimited PTO and a generous holiday calendar with a December holiday hiatus.
  • Generous parental leave.
  • FSA, HSA, hospital indemnity, critical illness, and accident insurance.
  • Basic life/AD&D and short- and long-term disability insurance are 100% covered by Firestorm, with optional additional life insurance.
  • Free 24/7 mental health resources and additional work-life services including legal and financial support.
  • Full-time onsite work at the San Diego headquarters with frequent bench and lab work; occasional local field/range support and less than 20% travel.
  • Occasional lifting or movement of lab kits weighing approximately 25 pounds and compliance with lab/range safety procedures.

Tech Stack

BashCC++DockerGitGitHub ActionsGitLab CI/CDJenkinsPowerShellpytestPythonRobot Framework

Categories

Firestorm

About Firestorm

201-500 employees
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