Senior/Principal Software Test Engineer, Onsite

Job Details

Job ID: 699185

Location: Albuquerque, NM

Employment Type: Full-Time

Employment Status: Regular

About Sandia

Sandia National Laboratories is the nation's premier science and engineering lab for national security and technology innovation, with teams of specialists focused on cutting-edge work in a broad array of areas. Some of the main reasons we love our jobs:

• Challenging work with amazing impact that contributes to security, peace, and freedom worldwide
• Extraordinary co-workers
• Some of the best tools, equipment, and research facilities in the world
• Career advancement and enrichment opportunities
• Flexible work arrangements for many positions include 9/80 (work 80 hours every two weeks, with every other Friday off) and 4/10 (work 4 ten-hour days each week) compressed workweeks, part-time work, and telecommuting (a mix of onsite work and working from home)
• Generous vacation, strong medical and other benefits, competitive 401k, learning opportunities, relocation assistance and amenities aimed at creating a solid work/life balance*

World-changing technologies. Life-changing careers. Learn more about Sandia at: http://www.sandia.gov

*These benefits vary by job classification.

What Your Job Will Be Like

We are seeking Software Engineering professionals to join a high-performing team focusing on system integration and testing for space missions. In this role, you will have opportunities to collaborate on the design, development, testing, and deployment of advanced real-time decision support ground systems. Work will include both manual testing using formal test procedures and automated testing using in-house developed automation test tools. You will work with experienced engineers and testers, receive mentoring, and progressively take on increasing responsibility while growing your skills in test automation, requirements-based verification using formal test procedures, and system integration. As an experienced team member, you will be expected to independently drive test strategy and execution for assigned capabilities, influence design-for-test, and improve automation frameworks and practices across the team.

On any given day you may be called to perform the following:

• Lead collaboration with software architects, system engineers, developers, technical leads, customers, and end users to collect and analyze requirements and translate them into verification approaches, formal test procedures, and automated test designs
• Contribute to the design, development, and delivery of technology solutions that improve software quality by influencing system/test architecture and design-for-testability decisions
• Generate automated tests to verify system functionality and own the health, coverage, and maintainability of assigned automated test suites
• Plan and support formal test activities at multiple levels, from components to the enterprise system, including test readiness, execution leadership for assigned events, and stakeholder status reporting
• Contribute to research and development activities, including proposing improvements and new ideas and driving improvements into team practice/tools
• Work within a team of system testers to perform requirements verification on a large, multi-node, Linux-based satellite ground system with responsibility for end-to-end verification of assigned subsystems/capabilities
• Define and evolve testing strategies as the ground system is migrated to newer technologies, such as cloud computing and containerization, including how verification will be executed in containerized and/or cloud-like environments
• Evaluate, recommend, and implement automated test strategies and tools by evaluating options, making recommendations, and implementing selected approaches
• Perform manual testing using formal test procedures and run automated tests on a regular basis while establishing repeatable, auditable test execution practices
• Analyze manual and automated test results, report status, and follow up on failed tests through anomaly triage, root-cause analysis, and tracking to closure
• Maintain test artifacts such as procedures, reports, and release notes; improve and extend test procedures as the system evolves and requirements are updated
• Maintain and extend in-house Python-based automation test tools by improving framework capabilities (reliability, scalability, maintainability, and documentation)
• Evaluate and adopt new automated testing methods and tools as the system evolves to a new architecture, including CI/CD-driven testing and modern toolchains aligned to migration
• Develop and apply testing skills to support user requirements for highly complex software/hardware applications, serving as a testing subject matter expert (