Engineering Manager, Software Test & Automation

Firestorm

$175K — $220K *
Aerospace & Defense
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 8+ years of experience in software, systems, integration, or test engineering
  • 3+ years of leading engineering teams
  • Proven experience managing integration and release testing for complex software systems
  • Strong expertise in test planning, coverage, defect management, and release reporting
  • Knowledge of integrated test environments like SIL, HIL, VIL
  • Solid foundation in software engineering and development of test automation/infrastructure
  • Ability to debug across software, interfaces, hardware, and systems
  • Proven skills in leading cross-functional testing efforts and resolving issues effectively

Responsibilities

  • Lead the software test and automation efforts for aircraft software
  • Define comprehensive test plans, criteria for entry and exit, and release reporting
  • Validate integration testing outcomes across SIL, HIL, VIL, and other environments
  • Enhance test automation to increase coverage and efficiency in software release qualification
  • Identify and address gaps in testing environments, tools, and automation capabilities
  • Improve infrastructure for automated test configuration and reporting
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to mitigate risks and close integration gaps
  • Recruit and nurture engineering talent focused on software and testing fundamentals

Benefits

  • Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans
  • 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan
  • Equity grants for new hires
  • Unlimited paid time off (PTO)
  • Generous holiday calendar including July & December hiatus
  • Generous parental leave
  • Lifestyle spending account
  • Flexible spending accounts (FSA)
  • Health savings account (HSA)
  • Hospital indemnity and critical illness insurance
  • Basic life, short-term, and long-term disability insurance at no cost to the employee
  • 24/7 mental health resources and additional work-life services
Full Job Description
About the Role

Firestorm builds modular autonomous aircraft designed to adapt across missions, payloads, and deployment environments. As those capabilities evolve, the software integration and test system has to keep pace.

We are hiring an Engineering Manager to lead Software Test & Automation for aircraft software. The team owns end-to-end software integration testing, release test planning and reporting, automated test execution, and the SIL, HIL, and VIL environments used to validate software before flight.

You will grow the team, own how aircraft software is tested for release, and build the test capability needed to increase coverage while keeping release cycles fast.

What You'll Do

  • Lead Software Test & Automation - Own the team responsible for aircraft software integration and release testing.
  • Own release testing - Define test plans, coverage, entry and exit criteria, defect disposition, and release reporting.
  • Drive end-to-end integration testing - Validate aircraft behaviors and interfaces across SIL, HIL, VIL, and flight-representative environments.
  • Scale test automation - Increase automated coverage and reduce the time and manual effort required to qualify software releases.
  • Own the test capability roadmap - Identify gaps in environments, tooling, instrumentation, and automation and drive the right solutions.
  • Build reliable test infrastructure - Improve the systems used to configure, execute, observe, and report automated testing.
  • Partner with aircraft software teams - Work across autonomy, embedded software, controls, GCS, systems, simulation, and flight test to identify risk and close integration gaps.
  • Grow the team - Hire and develop engineers with strong software, systems, and test fundamentals.


Required Qualifications

  • 8+ years of software, systems, integration, or test engineering experience
  • 3+ years leading engineering teams
  • Experience owning integration and release testing for complex software-intensive systems
  • Strong experience with test planning, coverage, defect management, and release reporting
  • Experience with SIL, HIL, VIL, simulation, or similar integrated test environments
  • Strong software engineering fundamentals and experience developing test automation or test infrastructure
  • Experience debugging failures across software, interfaces, networks, hardware, and system boundaries
  • Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional test efforts and drive issues to closure
  • Strong written and verbal communication


Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience testing autonomous systems, robotics, aircraft, or vehicles
  • Experience with scenario-based system testing and fault injection
  • Experience scaling automated test execution through CI/CD
  • Experience supporting flight software releases and flight test
  • Aerospace, defense, UAS, or safety-critical software experience


Work Environment

  • This role is based in San Diego, CA.
  • We welcome candidates who are local or open to relocating; relocation assistance is available and may be included in the offer package where appropriate.


Compensation

US Salary Range: $175,000 - $220,000 USD

The posted salary range reflects an estimate based on a variety of compensation factors, including but not limited to relevant experience, education, certifications, specialized skills, geographic location, and business needs. Actual compensation may vary, and this range is subject to change as our compensation structure or market conditions evolve.

Benefits & Perks

Our culture fosters collaboration, respect, and trust, empowering passionate people to do their best work. We offer a competitive salary, comprehensive benefits, and opportunities for career growth. In addition to an opportunity to take part in an innovative, collaborative and fast-growing business with a highly motivated and skilled team, we also take pride in taking care of our employees. Here are just a few ways that we show our appreciation:

  • We offer comprehensive medical, dental, and visions plans
  • 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan to invest in your long-term retirement goals
  • Equity grants for new hires
  • Unlimited PTO
  • Extremely generous company holiday calendar, including a holiday hiatus in July & December.
  • Generous Parental Leave
  • Lifestyle Spending Account
  • FSA
  • DCFSA
  • HSA
  • Hospital Indemnity insurance
  • Critical Illness insurance
  • Accident insurance
  • Basic Life/AD&D, short-term and long-term disability insurance, 100% covered by Firestorm. Plus, the option to purchase additional life insurance for you and your family.
  • Mental Health Resources: We provide free mental health resources 24/7 including therapy and more. Additional work-life services, such as free legal and financial support, are available to you as well.


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