Senior/Staff Embedded Test Engineer
Designs and runs automated tests for IoT devices, validating connectivity, security, and reliability from sensors to cloud under real-world conditions.
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Palo Alto, CA
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- Staff
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 5+ years
- Category
- Qa
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 10+ years of experience in embedded systems QA, with at least 5 years focused specifically on connected IoT products.
- Proven track record of testing and deploying commercially successful smart home, industrial IoT (IIoT), or wearable devices.
- Technical Skills IoT Protocols:
- Advanced knowledge of messaging protocols (MQTT, CoAP, HTTPS) and wireless stacks (Wi-Fi, BLE, NB-IoT).
- Languages: Python and solid understanding of C/C++. Cloud Infrastructure: Practical testing experience with major IoT cloud suites (e.g., AWS IoT Core, Azure IoT Hub, or Google Cloud IoT).
- Network & Hardware Tools: Mastery of Wireshark, logic analyzers, digital multimeters, and specialized RF network analyzers/attenuators.
- Embedded OS: Deep familiarity with IoT-focused operating systems like Zephyr RTOS, FreeRTOS, Embedded Linux, or Mbed OS.
Full description
Job Overview
We are seeking an experienced Senior or Staff Embedded Test Engineer with 10+ years of experience specializing in Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystems. In this role, you will validate the end-to-end connectivity, functionality, security, and reliability of our smart devices, bridging the gap between physical hardware, edge firmware, and cloud platforms. You will design automated edge-tocloud test setups, simulate necessary test environments, and ensure flawless wireless communication under real-world conditions.
Key Responsibilities
IoT Test Strategy & Network Simulation
Edge-to-Cloud Validation: Design test strategies covering the entire IoT data path from physical sensors to cloud databases and user applications.
Network Simulation: Set up test benches to simulate varying network conditions, packet loss, high latency, and intermittent connectivity.
Scale & Stress Testing: Conduct fleet-scale simulation to evaluate how cloud infrastructure handles concurrent data bursts from thousands of edge nodes.
Automation & CI/CD
Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL): Build and maintain automated HIL test rigs for continuous testing of connected products.
API Testing: Automate verification of cloud APIs.
DevOps Integration: Embed automated hardware connectivity tests directly into GitLab CI/CD delivery pipelines.
Wireless, Protocol, & Power Verification
RF & Wireless Testing: Validate wireless performance across protocols like BLE, Wi-Fi, LoRaWAN, and Cellular.
Protocol Analysis: Intercept and analyze network traffic using Wireshark to verify MQTT, CoAP, HTTP, and Protobuf payloads.
Power Profiling: Measure microampere battery consumption during active transmission, sleep states, and deep sleep modes to verify battery-life targets.
IoT Security & Resilience
Security Auditing: Conduct vulnerability testing, including firmware reverse engineering resistance, secure boot verification, and certificate rotation.
Encryption Validation: Ensure all data-at-rest and data-in-transit utilizes appropriate TLS, AES, or ECC encryption standards.
OTA Update Validation: Rigorously test Over-the-Air (OTA) firmware update mechanisms against power interruptions, corrupted payloads, and rollbacks.
Required Qualifications & Skills Experience
10+ years of experience in embedded systems QA, with at least 5 years focused specifically on connected IoT products.
Proven track record of testing and deploying commercially successful smart home, industrial IoT (IIoT), or wearable devices.