Test & Evaluation Lead

Role overview Lead quality assurance and physical testing for a system that turns spoken or typed intent into actions by autonomous platforms. You will build the software, simulation, and hardware-in-the-loop evaluation capability used to qualify releases, while setting the standards and readiness gates for later testing on real vehicles. The role combines hands-on test engineering with leadership and clear reporting of system performance.

Responsibilities - Define a staged test strategy, from automated checks on each build through simulation and system-level tests on physical platforms. - Build test frameworks and automated evaluation capability for simulation and hardware-in-the-loop environments. - Create end-to-end scenarios that probe difficult conditions, such as unclear commands, lost communications, and changing mission circumstances. - Measure whether the complete system behaves correctly, rather than relying only on component-level checks. - Set and track mission-level performance KPIs, investigate defects that pass existing gates, and report results to stakeholders. - Establish criteria for physical testing and determine whether builds are ready to proceed.

Requirements - At least six years in QA, test engineering, test automation, or systems testing, including leadership of engineers or test efforts. - Practical experience building reliable automated test suites and frameworks for complex software. - Strong Python skills, comfort working in Linux, and hands-on experience with continuous integration. - Experience defining test strategy, standards, KPIs, and readiness criteria for complex systems. - Working knowledge of testing real hardware or platforms, simulation, and hardware-in-the-loop approaches. - A technical degree or equivalent hands-on experience.

Nice to have Experience evaluating production machine learning systems, testing systems with ML components, or working in robotics, autonomy, unmanned systems, or defense test and evaluation. The source also favors experience establishing a test function in a growing organization.