Test Engineer - Systems/Electrical
A hands-on test engineer who designs and executes test plans, fixtures, and instrumentation for electrical, power, avionics, and communications systems on ultra-long-endurance unmanned aircraft. Day to day: integrating and troubleshooting hardware/firmware/software systems, stress and boundary testing, and supporting ground and flight test activities.
- Compensation
- Not disclosed
- Location
- Hayward, California, United States
- Work setup
- Onsite
- Seniority
- Not specified
- Employment
- Full time
- Experience
- Not specified
- Category
- Qa
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- Professional experience in systems, electrical, embedded, hardware, or multidisciplinary test engineering
- Experience developing and executing engineering test plans, procedures, and validation activities
- Strong understanding of how electrical hardware, software, firmware, power, communications, and subsystems interact at the system level
- Experience troubleshooting integrated systems across engineering disciplines
- Strong electrical fundamentals: power, voltage, current, signal integrity, wiring, connectors, sensors, interfaces
- Experience testing system performance under load, stress, boundary, or maximum-operating conditions
- Familiarity with CAN and other serial/embedded communication protocols
- Experience using test equipment such as multimeters, oscilloscopes, power supplies, and analyzers
- Ability to interpret engineering drawings, wiring diagrams, schematics, and technical specifications
- Experience documenting test results, failures, anomalies, and corrective actions
- Ability to independently analyze complex technical issues
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical, Computer, Systems, or Aerospace Engineering or related field, or equivalent practical experience
- Demonstrated experience testing complex engineered systems combining hardware, software, communications, and electrical interfaces
- Strong systems-thinking capability
- Ability to work hands-on with prototype and development hardware
- U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain a U.S. security clearance if required
- Ability and willingness to work onsite in Hayward, California
- Ability and willingness to travel periodically for testing, flight operations, and demonstrations
Nice to have
- Experience with UAS, drones, aerospace, robotics, or autonomous vehicles
- Computer Engineering background or experience across electrical hardware and software boundaries
- Experience with avionics, autopilots, flight controllers, embedded systems, or payload integration
- ArduPilot or similar autopilot configuration and troubleshooting experience
- Experience with CAN, UART, SPI, I2C, Ethernet, RS-232/422/485
- Experience designing test fixtures, harnesses, automated test setups, or data-acquisition systems
- Experience with electrical power testing, load testing, power quality, voltage-drop analysis, or power budgeting
- Experience with requirements verification, validation matrices, interface control documentation, or formal V&V
- Experience performing root-cause analysis on complex system or electrical failures
- Practical electrical assembly: wiring, soldering, crimping, connectors, harnesses
- CAD, rapid prototyping, 3D printing, or CNC experience for test fixtures
- FAA Part 107 certification
Full description
Kraus Hamdani Aerospace (KHA) is an aerospace company specializing in long-endurance unmanned aerial platforms for a wide variety of industries. KHA supports a number of customers to carry out missions involving aerial reconnaissance, survey, communication relay and communications provisioning. Endurance, enabled by effective design, is key to these applications and KHA aircraft utilize cutting-edge aircraft design together with on-board intelligence to deliver value for these customers.
Test Engineer - Systems/Electrical
Location
Hayward, CA
About the Role
Kraus Hamdani Aerospace is seeking a hands-on Test Engineer - Systems/Electrical to support the development, integration, verification, and validation of electrical and interconnected systems across the KHA family of Ultra Long Endurance unmanned aircraft.
This is not a traditional electrical engineering role, nor is it a pure software engineering role. The ideal candidate understands how complex systems connect and interact across electrical hardware, embedded/software-controlled systems, power, communications, interfaces, sensors, and avionics.
This individual will design test approaches, develop test procedures and fixtures, evaluate system performance under realistic and stressed conditions, troubleshoot integration issues, and help determine whether systems are functioning cleanly, reliably, and as intended.
The ideal candidate is highly analytical, technically curious, and comfortable moving between hardware, software, instrumentation, and system-level problem solving.
Key Responsibilities
Test Engineering & Verification
- Design, develop, and execute test procedures for electrical, avionics, power, communications, and integrated system functionality.
- Develop test plans, test cases, test methods, and acceptance criteria based on engineering requirements and system behavior.
- Design and support development of test fixtures, harnesses, instrumentation setups, and other test infrastructure required for repeatable and effective validation.
- Perform system-level functional, integration, performance, regression, and stress testing across prototype and production-intent hardware.
- Validate systems under expected and maximum operating conditions to identify degradation, instability, voltage drop, signal issues, performance limits, or unexpected interactions.
- Analyze test results to determine not simply whether a system works, but how well it works, how cleanly it performs, where its limitations exist, and how it behaves near operational boundaries.
- Document test configurations, procedures, results, anomalies, conclusions, and corrective actions with clear traceability.