$70–85/hr · Mercor · Hourly, 40 hours a week
You architect and implement automated electrical testing systems that validate hardware performance and catch defects reliably.
What you would do
- Design and implement automated test sequences, procedures, and measurement protocols aligned with hardware requirements
- Integrate test instruments, data acquisition systems, and interface hardware into functional testing platforms
- Create test suites and analytical tools using Python, MATLAB, LabVIEW, C/C++, or similar languages
- Perform functional, performance, validation, and regression testing of electrical and electronic hardware
- Analyze test results, debug hardware and infrastructure issues, and pinpoint defect sources
Who they want
- Engineering degree in electrical, electronics, instrumentation, or mechatronics discipline
- Hands-on experience building and running automated electrical test platforms
- Strong coding skills in Python, MATLAB, LabVIEW, C/C++, or similar test development languages
- Experience with instrument control protocols: SCPI, GPIB, USB, Ethernet, CAN, RS-232/485
- Ability to read electrical schematics, test specifications, and technical documentation
Main skills
What the interview asks about
1.Test system architecture and integration
Successful test automation requires designing systems that reliably measure hardware behavior; interviewers verify you think through instrument selection, synchronization, and error handling.
For example: “Build a test system for a power supply across input voltage ranges 85-264V. What instruments, measurement sequence, and approach to detect setup-induced failures?”
2.Instrument communication and protocol handling
SCPI and other protocols are central to test automation; your comfort with timing, error responses, and edge cases reveals depth of hands-on experience.
For example: “Your MATLAB test script sends 500 measurement commands to an oscilloscope over GPIB, but intermittently only receives 480 results. Walk me through how you'd diagnose whether the issue is timeout, buffer overflow, or firmware state.”
3.Regression test design and failure triage
Regression testing must be selective, fast, and reliable; interviewers assess whether you design suites that catch regressions without becoming unmaintainable.
For example: “A hardware revision changed one capacitor value. Your regression tests passed, but a customer found a 5% frequency drift at operating temperature. What test coverage gap might have allowed this to slip through?”
4.Root cause analysis of measurement failures
Hardware and test failures often intertwine; you need systematic methods to distinguish real defects from test setup or instrument errors.
For example: “A batch of 20 boards failed a voltage linearity test at 10V, but passed at 5V and 15V. All boards passed in the incoming inspection. What hypotheses would you test, and in what order?”
5.Test framework maintainability and evolution
Test automation accumulates; frameworks that aren't designed for evolution become brittle and expensive to maintain.
For example: “Your test suite for a battery charger spans 200 test cases. A new hardware variant needs 30 additional tests. How do you structure your framework to minimize duplication and ease future variant support?”
A task you may get
Design an automated test plan for validating a simple electronic component (e.g., an LED driver or DC-DC converter). Specify instruments, measurement points, test sequences, and how you'd detect common failure modes.
How to prepare
- Study SCPI command standards and typical instrument communication patterns to understand integration requirements
- Review case studies of test automation in automotive or consumer electronics to see how test suites scale
- Examine LabVIEW TestStand or pytest frameworks to understand test architecture patterns
- Practice reasoning through hardware-level debugging: what tool would you use to diagnose each type of failure (signal integrity, timing, measurement error)?
The facts
- Pay
- $70–85/hr
- Hours
- Hourly, 40 hours a week
- Where
- Remote
- Field
- Other Engineering
- Posted
- 8/29/2026
- Places left
- 15
We wrote this page from the public Mercor listing. It may be out of date, so read the full posting before you apply.