Software Integration & Test Engineer (Contract)

About the position

Astrobotic is looking for a Software Integration and Test Engineer to help with the planning and execution of the software integration and test program for our lunar landers. Candidates should be effective self-starters who are detail-oriented and can work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment. As part of Astrobotic's Software & Controls Team, you will literally be creating history as we define the benchmark for commercial delivery of payloads to the Moon and beyond. This is a contract position that is expected to last 6-9 months.

Responsibilities

• Design test plans and test procedures to validate and verify spacecraft software and hardware, including rocket engines, inertial measurement units, star trackers, radar systems, sun sensors, thermal controllers, lidar, and guidance, navigation and control algorithms designed to autonomously navigate a spacecraft to the moon and land on it
• Develop software testing infrastructure and tests within it that facilitate easily verifying that spacecraft systems function the same across platforms with varying combinations of simulators and actual spacecraft hardware
• Improve the capabilities of software testing infrastructure to support both developer and automated testing needs, enabling tighter integration between developers and testers
• Execute test procedures manually in cases where multi-million dollar spacecraft hardware is involved, and report regressions. Ideally develop the automated system so that manual testing follows automated testing closely
• Expand tests that run autonomously on a nightly basis against a continuous integration pipeline across different hardware platforms, for greater test coverage across more systems
• Write bug tickets when software issues are incurred as part of our verification process
• Develop automatic reporting tools and mechanisms to improve understanding of how failed and passed tests map to subsystem-level requirements
• Benchmark and analyze spacecraft system performance across all flight modes
• Help identify and resolve anomalous software behavior
• Work with a small team of developers, engineers and technicians to proactively solve problems found through testing the spacecraft software system
• Manage and schedule test regressions and test resources
• Manage test software repositories for multiple projects
• Perform acceptance tests and trace tested features back to requirements
• Collect, analyze and present test metrics

Requirements

• A bachelor's or graduate degree, ideally in a technical field
• Minimum five years of relevant work experience
• Proficiency with Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)
• Proficiency with scripting languages (e.g. Python)
• Demonstrated ability to build and test distributed software and/or hardware systems
• Demonstrated ability to lead anomaly investigation activities involving multiple experts

Nice-to-haves

• Knowledge of formal software V&V processes
• Proficiency with software configuration management tools (e.g. git)
• Experience with containers (e.g. Docker) and virtual machines (e.g. QEMU)
• Experience with Linux and other embedded operating systems
• Familiarity with coding safety standards (e.g. MISRA-C)
• Familiarity with communication protocols (e.g. CCSDS, Ethernet, RS-422, TCP/IP, I2C, QAM, RS-232, Spacewire, CAN, GPIO, IPC, MIL1553, RS-485)
• Familiarity with electronic test equipment including oscilloscopes, multimeters, and logic analyzers
• Familiarity with electrical circuit dynamics
• Familiarity with environmental testing (e.g. EMC/EMI, thermal-vacuum testing)
• Familiarity with some of the systems that the software system is driving including multi-DOF spacecraft controls, thermal systems, RF communications systems, avionics systems, and power systems