Staff/ Sr. Staff HW Test Automation Engineer - Mountain View, CA, United States
$167,000 USD yearly
Originally posted 14 September 2026 by the employer.
Work on the world’s first 3D-stacked photonics engine, Passage™.
About the role
This role involves building the software that brings up, characterizes, and qualifies Lightmatter's photonic chips on real hardware, from bench-top bring-up through production test on automated test equipment (ATE). You will write code that drives instruments, testers, wafer probers, and lab automation to bring a chip to life and prove it works.
What you'll do
- Learn the hardware you are automating to make informed software decisions.
- Design and build test software that automates device bring-up, characterization, and production test sequences across bench and ATE environments.
- Develop and maintain test methods, test flows, and instrument control code, including writing and reviewing code daily.
- Work with hardware and characterization engineers to translate device physics and test requirements into working, repeatable test software.
- Build and maintain data logging and results pipelines for accurate data capture and downstream usability (metric computation, yield analysis, production handoff).
- Debug test hardware/software integration issues across the device under test, fixture, instrument, and test code to find root cause.
What you'll need
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or related field.
- 8+ years of experience in hardware test software, ATE systems, or test architecture in semiconductor or photonics.
- Track record of owning test software architecture for a product line, including framework scalability decisions.
- Hands-on experience with ATE test method/test flow development and/or embedded test frameworks for hardware test automation.
- Fluency with instrumentation automation (SCPI/VISA or equivalent).
- History of mentoring engineers and driving cross-functional technical decisions with hardware, characterization, and manufacturing teams.
- Comfortable reading and reasoning about embedded software (C/C++), controls, or firmware.
Nice to have
- Master's/PhD with 3+ years of experience in hardware test software, ATE systems, or test architecture in semiconductor or photonics.
- Experience integrating ATE with wafer-level hardware (probers, handlers).
- Experience with photonic test instrumentation.
This role has been open 30 days — slightly above the 28-day median for Silicon Test Engineering roles.
Silicon Test Engineering · DFT Test
|
Open roles in category
542
|
Median days open
28 d
|
Median salary
$172k
|
See the full market breakdown ▾Category comparison, and who else is hiring
| Metric | Lightmatter | All employers we track in this specialty (542 roles · 76 employers) |
|---|---|---|
| Open roles in this specialty | 5 | 542 |
| Open roles in the wider Silicon Validation & Test family | 9 | 2224 · 112 employers |
| Median days open | 30 d | 28 d (+2 d vs this employer) |
| Median salary (USD postings) | — | $172k |
Who's hiring in this category
- Teradyne · 72 open roles · median 27 d
- Renesas Electronics · 45 open roles · median 22 d
- Infineon Technologies · 41 open roles · median 37 d
- Micron Technology · 27 open roles · median 35 d
- Qualcomm · 27 open roles · median 27 d
- AMD · 25 open roles · median 42 d
How we counted: 542 open Silicon Test Engineering (DFT Test) roles from 76 employers tracked in the SemiconductorJobs index, counted 15 Oct 2026. Specialty figures count only roles carrying this exact specialty label, so an employer's related work in neighbouring specialties is not included there — it is counted in the wider Silicon Validation & Test family row. Figures refresh nightly.