Roles / Embedded Software Test and Automation Engineer

Embedded Software Test and Automation Engineer

SW-020v1

Embedded Software, Firmware & DriversQualityIC2–IC6Individual contributor

Also known as: Embedded QA Engineer; Software Validation Engineer (Embedded); Test Automation Engineer Embedded

See this role on the Firmware and software lifecycle or on the Equipment lifecycle or on the Medical lifecycle or on the Avionics lifecycle or on the Industrial lifecycle or on the Automotive SPICE lifecycle or on the Vehicle cybersecurity lifecycle or on the System lifecycle or on the SoC lifecycle

Summary

Proves that embedded software behaves correctly, robustly and consistently on real hardware, and automates that proof so it repeats on every change. Exists because software defects in silicon products are expensive to find in the field and impossible to recall cheaply.

A day in the life

Work in progressNo day-in-the-life description has been written for this role yet. If you do this work, we would welcome yours. Suggest a source or a correction

Responsibilities

Project

Work done for a product or program.

Derive test strategies and test cases from software requirements, interface specifications and risk analysis.
Develop automated test suites at unit, integration, system and hardware-in-the-loop levels.
Build test harnesses and stimulus generation using instruments, bus interfaces, fault injectors and simulators.
Implement stress, soak, power-cycle, thermal and boundary tests to expose robustness and resource-leak defects.
Measure and report code coverage and requirements coverage, driving gaps to closure with development teams.
Perform fault-injection and negative testing including corrupted inputs, bus errors and communication loss scenarios.
Triage, reproduce and document defects with enough precision that developers can fix them without re-investigation.
Maintain regression suites, reduce flaky tests and keep execution time within CI budget.
Report quality status and release readiness with objective metrics to release gates.

Function

Work that keeps the discipline running: methods, tools, suppliers and people.

Validate software against protocol conformance and standards test suites where applicable.

Major tasks

Project

Produce and hand over the role's key deliverables

Test plans, test specifications and traceability matrices
Automated regression and system test suites
Test harnesses, fixtures and simulation models
Coverage and quality metric reports
Defect reports and release readiness assessments

Qualify the productGeneral

Write the qualification plan
Run stress tests and analyse the results
Approve the qualification report

Handle quality issuesGeneral

Analyse failures
Drive corrective and preventive action
Respond to customers

Function

Run the quality systemGeneral
- Maintain procedures and records
- Prepare for and run audits
Report and improveGeneral
- Track quality metrics
- Lead improvement projects

Works with

Development teams across firmware and application layers
DevOps and infrastructure engineers
functional safety engineers
release engineers
product management
customer quality teams

Typical backgrounds

BS in Electrical, Computer or Software Engineering; 2–10 years in embedded verification; often crosses over from development or hardware validation.

Demand signal

0 open listings right now
0 Talent Wafer employer inquiries

Counts live listings tagged to this role, and employer interest in candidates from Talent Wafer runs for this role (all runs to date). Hub activity only, not the wider market.

Comp tier (within semis)

2 / 5

Remote feasibility

Medium

Semis core vs. portable

Highly portable

Geographic hotspots

Bangalore, Chennai, Munich, Shanghai, Penang, Taipei, Bucharest, Guadalajara, Detroit

Certifications / standards training

ISTQB Certified Tester Foundation and Advanced; TÜV Functional Safety Engineer for safety programmes; A-SPICE awareness

Transfers to (industries)

Automotive, medical devices, aerospace, industrial automation, rail, consumer electronics, robotics

Risk if vacant

Defects reach customers and the field, each escape costing orders of magnitude more to fix, and releases ship on hope rather than evidence.

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