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Salary: USD 178,000 - 225,000 / annual
Lightmatter is a venture-backed company (Series D, $4.4B valuation) pioneering AI data center infrastructure through photonics technology. The company invented Passage™, a 3D-stacked photonics engine that connects thousands to millions of processors at light speed for advanced AI and HPC workloads.
You will join as a Senior Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) focused on firmware automation. This is a software engineering role first—you'll design and build the frameworks, harnesses, and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) infrastructure that enable firmware engineers to test their code continuously on real photonic hardware. You'll sit with the firmware team, spend time at the bench with oscilloscopes, debuggers, and optical instruments, and serve as the technical bridge between firmware and broader software and systems organizations.
Key responsibilities include:
- Own the architecture and roadmap of the firmware test automation framework across products, targets, sites, and teams
- Design and build stable automation for new firmware features and hardware to production-quality standards
- Build and operate HIL test infrastructure: bench and rack fixtures, device farms, power/reset control, instrument integration, and CI orchestration on real photonic hardware
- Define test strategy, plans, and reporting; lead test plan reviews across teams
- Integrate firmware testing into CI/CD so every change is built, flashed, exercised on hardware, and reported automatically
- Own framework reliability and flaky test metrics as first-class engineering problems
- Build results, telemetry, and log pipelines for triage, trend analysis, and release decisions
- Debug failures across the full stack (firmware, board, instrument, fixture, test code) and partner with engineers to resolve them
- Participate in firmware design reviews to influence testability and diagnostics early
- Integrate with data center management interfaces (CMIS, OpenBMC, DMTF); debug embedded systems using GDB, JTAG, and logic analyzers
- Define diagnostics and monitoring architecture for photonic transceivers
- Mentor engineers on test architecture and write clear documentation for non-specialists
The role offers a hybrid workplace model with offices in Boston, MA and Mountain View, CA.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 8+ years of professional software development, primarily on embedded products, including designing test frameworks and infrastructure
- BS or MS in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent experience
- At least one automation framework or HIL system architected and built from scratch, adopted by other engineers, and in daily use; ability to discuss its design, tradeoffs, and lessons learned
- Strong Python: fixture and abstraction layers, hardware drivers, plugin/configuration architectures
- Working fluency in embedded C/C++: able to read firmware drivers or state machines and write tests for edge cases
- Experience owning CI/CD pipelines running tests on physical hardware (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, or equivalent), including runner health, hardware allocation, and recovery
- Track record of delivering robust automation under fast-changing requirements and hardware
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
- PhD, or MS with 8+ years in embedded test automation or firmware development
- Experience testing firmware for optical transceivers, photonic systems, or precision analog/mixed-signal hardware
- Familiarity with CMIS, OpenBMC, or DMTF/Redfish
- Experience with Pytest ecosystem and test tooling for Zephyr or FreeRTOS (Twister, ztest, Renode, QEMU, or similar)
- Experience with optical and electrical test and measurement equipment
- Startup experience
- Thoughtful use of AI-assisted tools in test generation, triage, or analytics
