Senior Hardware Testing Engineer - Robotics (m/f/d)

Job description

**About the Role at RobCo** RobCo is building the category of Autonomous Industrial Robotics and we're doing it fast. We believe that automating the ordinary frees humans to do the extraordinary, and we're building the end-to-end robotics infrastructure to make that possible - hardware, software, and AI in one stack that just works. At RobCo, we automate the ordinary, so humans can do the extraordinary. To achieve this, we are looking for an ambitious **Senior Hardware Testing Engineer - Robotics (m/f/d)** to help us establish RobCo as leading provider of automation solutions. In this key role, you will bridge the gap between our physical hardware and intelligent control systems. You won't just follow standard test procedures, you will design the validation framework that ensures our autonomous manufacturing platforms are bulletproof, safe, and ready for global scale. **Your Responsibilities** - **Define the Standards:** Act as the technical authority to decide exactly how we prove our hardware and controls work together at major milestones. - **Cross-Layer Debugging:** Tackle the toughest issues where mechanical backlash, electrical noise, and control-loop timing collide using tools like oscilloscopes and log parsers. - **Stress & Margin Testing:** Push the hardware into the corners of its envelope through thermal, vibration, and load-cycling campaigns to publish actual performance margins. - **Negative & Fault Testing:** Validate how the system behaves under fault conditions (e.g., sensor dropouts, power spikes) to ensure safe degradation and predictable recovery. - **Traceability & Regression Tracking:** Catch drift, wear, and slow regressions across firmware updates before they ever reach the field. Map field observations back to lab tests to continuously perfect our validation strategy. - **Gatekeeper Role:** Hold red-flag authority at gate reviews. You provide the data-backed confidence to green-light a release or halt it. **Your Profile** - **Experience:** 5+ years in system integration, test, or validation engineering within robotics, automotive, or aerospace. - **Technical Fluency:** Strong Python skills (`pandas`, `numpy`, `pytest`) for hardware automation and data/signal analysis. - **Control Fundamentals:** A solid grasp of servo loops, motor characterisation, and encoder behavior. - **Industrial Protocols:** Working knowledge of EtherCAT, CAN, and TCP/IP, alongside comfort reading electrical schematics and mechanical drawings. - **Systems Thinker:** The ability to mentally map how a control-loop tweak ripples through thermal, mechanical, and electrical behaviors. - **Communication:** Clear ability to convey technical risks to non-technical stakeholders without diluting the underlying reality. - **Language:** Very good English skills (German is a plus). **Why join RobCo?** - Develop modular, software-defined robotics solutions with us that set new standards in automation. - Help us build robots equipped with state-of-the-art AI that perceive their environment, analyse data, and make intelligent decisions in real time. - As part of a very dynamic and fast-growing scale-up, you will take on responsibility from day one, drive your own projects, and see the direct impact of your work. - Flat hierarchies, open communication, and regular 360° feedback enable fast decisions and support your professional and personal development. - Work out across Germany in over 7,200 studios with our subsidised Wellpass membership. - Flexible working hours, a modern office, and—depending on the role—the option to work from home. - Regular team events—from relaxed beer & pizza nights on the rooftop terrace to shared experiences on ski trips or at Oktoberfest. **About RobCo** Founded in Munich in 2020, RobCo leads the transition toward fully Autonomous Industrial Robotics. Our mission is to deploy RobCo in every factory - solving the industrial labor shortage through end-to-end robotics that just works. Powered by Physical AI, our solutions combine a scalable modular hardware architecture with intelligent software that adapts to your use case, improves over time, and requires zero upfront investment through our Robotics-as-a-Service (RaaS) model. We solve our customers' most pressing pain points - labor shortage, cost pressure, workplace safety, and national reshoring - across the full spectrum of Autonomous Industrial Robotics. With $160M raised from investors including Lightspeed, Lingotto Innovation, and Sequoia, 200+ people globally, and 2.5M+ operating hours in the field, we are deploying robots in factories across Europe and the United States - with our US operations headquartered in Austin, TX, and our RobCo Bay Area Demo Lab in San Francisco. *Don’t meet every single requirement? If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.* *At RobCo, applicants are selected regardless of ethnic origin, religion, gender, age, disability, or sexual orientation. All decisions throughout the recruitment process are based solely on applicants’ qualifications, skills, knowledge, and experience, as well as relevant business requirements.*