Senior Systems Integration & Test Engineer
Plans and runs validation campaigns (dynamometer, high-voltage, reliability, thermal, vibration) for Tau's EV power-conversion products — motors, onboard chargers, DC-DC converters, power modules — debugging anomalies to root cause and representing Tau onsite at customer and Tier 1 sites. Core tools: MATLAB/Simulink, CAN, HV lab test equipment.
- Compensation
- $120K–$210K / yr
- Location
- Redwood City, CA
- Work setup
- Not specified
- Seniority
- Senior
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 6+ years
- Category
- Qa
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 6+ years of experience in automotive system integration and test, or related field
- Bachelor's degree or higher in Electrical Engineering, Mechatronics, Controls, Computer Science, or related field, or equivalent experience
- Experience planning and directing test campaigns, briefing teams, managing anomalies, and making real-time execution decisions
- Experience developing test plans and procedures (sequencing, entry/exit criteria, coverage) for complex integrated systems
- Hands-on experience with dynamometer testing and high-voltage system safety practices (lockout/tagout, interlocks, HV PPE)
- Experience with reliability, thermal, or vibration/environmental test methods
- Understanding of test equipment (oscilloscopes, meters, sensors) and hands-on electrical troubleshooting including reading wiring diagrams
- Experience with MATLAB/Simulink or comparable tools in a real-time simulation environment
- Strong command of communication protocols: CAN/CAN-FD, RS-422/485, Ethernet/TCP-IP, or similar
- Holistic understanding of automotive powertrain systems and their impact on vehicle capability
- Willingness to travel for onsite customer and supplier support
- Strong problem-solving, cross-functional collaboration, and written/verbal communication skills
Nice to have
- Experience with high-voltage power electronics, inverters, or EV/energy storage powertrains
- Prior experience testing onsite at a Tier 1 automotive supplier or OEM test facility
- Proficiency in the NI software suite (LabVIEW, VeriStand)
- Strong C/C++ and Python skills
- Familiarity with functional safety standards (e.g., ISO 26262)
- Startup or fast-paced hard tech development experience
Full description
About Tau
Power conversion is the bottleneck between the compute, energy, and mobility industries and the future they're trying to build. Most of the industry is still solving it with decades-old approaches. Tau is fixing that. We're a venture-backed hardtech company in Redwood City, building power conversion technology for data centers, EVs, and energy systems. Several products are already moving into production.
We hire people who own problems end-to-end: power electronics, embedded software, controls, test and validation, mechanical design. We solve from first principles, not legacy playbooks. We're past "promising technology." Customers are buying, volume is coming, and the people who join now set the standard everyone builds on after.
About the role
Tau is validating power electronics at the boundary between hardware, controls, software, thermal systems, and the vehicle. Failures rarely belong neatly to one discipline. The job is to design tests that expose those interactions, distinguish product problems from test problems, and turn ambiguous system behavior into defensible engineering conclusions.
This role owns test planning and execution for Tau's power conversion products, including electric motors, onboard chargers, DC-DC converters, and power modules for EV powertrains. You'll define what "validated" means for a given program, plan and run the dynamometer, high-voltage, reliability, thermal, and vibration campaigns that prove it, and drive anomalies to root cause using Tau's existing test capability.
You'll also be one of Tau's technical faces to the outside world. When a customer or Tier 1 partner needs someone onsite to run dynamometer testing on their floor, troubleshoot alongside their engineering team, and represent Tau's product credibly under their scrutiny, that's you.
What you'll doTest strategy and planning
- Build systematic integration and test plans with clear sequencing,
- entry/exit criteria, instrumentation, configuration baselines, expected
- behavior, evidence, decision records, owners, and closure criteria
- Define the dynamometer, high-voltage, reliability, thermal, and
- vibration test campaigns needed to validate power conversion products
- against requirements
- Set technical standards for what counts as validated, calibrated, and trustworthy, including reliability and durability sign-off, and hold the work to them
- Prioritize and sequence test coverage against program risk and milestones, in collaboration with the engineers who own the design
Test execution and analysis
- Direct and coordinate lab test operations from pre-test preparation through execution, serving as the focal point for test sequencing, anomaly response, and troubleshooting