Test Engineer

Job description

At Aircapture, we’re creating and scaling a circular carbon economy to solve what we believe to be the challenge of our lifetime: the climate crisis. We supply commercial and industrial customers with clean CO₂ captured directly from the atmosphere, transforming a climate threat into a valuable resource. Solving a challenge of this scale takes people with different backgrounds, experiences, and ways of thinking. We value those differences and believe they make us a stronger team. Aircapture is building the next generation of Direct Air Capture machines by iterating through the design-build-test loop to evolve from prototypes to production. You will test at every level, from component-level ALT to full system-level performance and optimization. You have done substantive test work on real systems, take pride in rigorous and reproducible results, and communicate your findings clearly to engineering peers and cross-functional collaborators. If you are a hands-on engineer who wants to do meaningful work at a groundbreaking climate technology company, we want to hear from you. **This role is onsite at our development and production facility in Berkeley, California.** **Salary: $130,000-170,000 per year****What You’ll Do Here** - Conduct system-level testing of our DAC systems, including design envelope testing, performance characterization, and operational optimization - Help define the metrics that describe system efficiency and performance, bridging the gap between high-level OKRs and design-team deliverables with a physics-based understanding of what our equipment actually does in operation - Plan and conduct HALT and ALT testing programs in partnership with the design teams to de-risk new design concepts, including developing test objectives, designing fixtures, instrumenting the test rig, executing tests, performing analysis, and delivering clear feedback that informs the design process - Develop a rigorous, data-driven understanding of equipment and part performance and reliability by characterizing performance degradation over time, validating or challenging design-life assumptions, and using these insights to inform predictive maintenance models and O&M schedules - Translate test findings into actionable feedback for the design and operations teams, accelerating the feedback loops that drive the development process - Partner across the organization to develop the data pipeline that moves test and operational data from the telemetry system into dashboards and reports that support engineering decisions **Your Skills and Abilities Include** - Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Controls Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics, or a closely related field. Master’s degree a plus - 4–8 years of professional experience in test engineering, systems testing, or experimental R&D, with hands-on involvement in test programs on hardware systems, including test execution, instrumentation, and analysis - Strong instrumentation and data acquisition background, including sensor selection, signal conditioning, DAQ and SCADA systems, and historian platforms, e.g., Ignition, ibaPDA, National Instruments, Keysight, or similar (we use Ignition) - Hands-on experience with the full test cycle: test objective development, fixture design and build, instrumentation selection and installation, data logging, analysis, and design feedback - Deep physics-based understanding of thermal, fluid, or electrochemical systems, sufficient to define meaningful performance metrics, identify anomalies in data, and evaluate whether a system is behaving as designed - Aptitude with Python, JMP, SQL, Excel, or equivalent for data analysis and visualization; able to work alongside data engineers to shape the pipeline and extract meaning from large operational datasets - Experience establishing quality or reliability systems in a hardware organization, including FAT requirements, reliability test programs, failure mode analysis, and health monitoring of deployed systems - Proficiency developing performance metrics for complex systems—not just measuring what’s easy, but defining what matters and building the analysis to capture it - A plus: leadership experience on small teams; project management experience; prior experience with Direct Air Capture, carbon capture, industrial process equipment, or other complex energy or climate hardware; experience scaling a test or quality function from early-stage through commercial production; background in reliability engineering, predictive maintenance, or asset performance management *This position requires physical activities including climbing stairs or ladders, stooping, crouching to work on equipment, operating machinery and lifting and carrying loads of 25 lbs or more.* Aircapture strives to create a safe, inclusive, equitable and diverse workplace where everyone can do their best work. We hope you feel welcome here.