R&D Test Engineer, Instrumentation

About Gridware

Gridware is a San Francisco-based technology company dedicated to protecting and enhancing the electrical grid. We pioneered a groundbreaking new class of grid management called active grid response (AGR), focused on monitoring the electrical, physical, and environmental aspects of the grid that affect reliability and safety. Gridware’s advanced Active Grid Response platform uses high-precision sensors to detect potential issues early, enabling proactive maintenance and fault mitigation. This comprehensive approach helps improve safety, reduce outages, and ensure the grid operates efficiently. The company is backed by climate-tech and Silicon Valley investors. For more information, please visit .

Role Description

We are seeking a curious, hands-on R&D Test Engineer with an instrumentation focus to join our Physical R&D team. You will own the test infrastructure our scientists depend on: designing and building fixtures, instrumenting test systems, developing data collection methods, running experiments, and turning one-off prototype setups into repeatable systems.

Our scientists define what to investigate, and together you collaboratively define how; examples include fixturing, sensor selection, data acquisition, procedure, and controls. You will build the systems that make those tests possible, run the experiments, and ensure they produce trustworthy data. The work spans a wide range of environments, including our lab, warehouse, outdoor microgrid, and future pilot-scale settings, each requiring solutions tailored to the environment and test goals.

You will also be the person who makes test methods durable. When an experiment or test grows past an exploratory stage, you mature it through designing fixtureand sending updates, writing SOPs, or training others.

This role sits on the R&D team, which is responsible for the sensing and measurement performance of our devices rather than their design or implementation. It is not a reliability, qualification, or manufacturing test role. You will not own device design, though what you measure will regularly inform it.

Responsibilities

• Develop and improve existing prototype physical experimentation infrastructure. Design and build test fixtures, rigs, and setups in collaboration with R&D Technicians and Research Engineers. Translate guidance and test intent from Research Engineers into a physical setup that produces trustworthy data.

• Architect, source, assemble, and operate electromechanical test setups end to end. Scope the build, select and procure components and instrumentation, manage vendors and machine shops, and get it working on the bench and at our test facilities.

• Instrument test articles and fixtures: select, mount, wire, and calibrate sensors (including strain gauges, load cells, accelerometers and IMUs, thermocouples, displacement and position sensors).