Actuator Test & Equipment Engineer – Generalist Intelligent Robots

Dyno Development

• Design and build motor dynos, actuator dynos, and back-to-back test setups for performance and efficiency characterization across the full speed-torque envelope.
• Specify load motors, torque transducers, encoders, drives, and the mechanical structure that keeps everything aligned at speed.
• Build the rigs that let us run millions of cycles at representative loads without paying for every joule of input energy.
• Define data acquisition requirements — sample rates, sensor accuracy, synchronization, filtering, storage — in close partnership with the modeling engineer.
• Work closely with the actuator technician to make sure tests are run promptly and efficiently.
• Build the procedures, fixtures, and software tooling that turn a test stand into a high-throughput piece of capital equipment rather than a one-off experiment.
• Partner with design and modeling engineers to define test plans for component characterization, model correlation, and durability validation.
• Push back when a plan won't actually answer the question being asked.

Data Integrity & Reporting

• Own the integrity of the data leaving your test stands — calibration, traceability, uncertainty quantification.
• Own the clarity of the reports that go back to design and modeling.

Gear Test Capability

• Develop 4-square gear testing setups for high-cycle, low-energy gear life and efficiency testing.
• Build the rigs that let us run millions of cycles at representative loads without paying for every joule of input energy.

Cooling Test Benches

• Build cooling test benches that characterize motor and actuator thermal behavior — coolant flow, heat rejection, temperature rise under load — and validate the thermal models that drive our cooling architecture.

Durability & Cycling Equipment

• Design housing cycling test equipment and other durability rigs that exercise actuators against representative duty cycles, environmental conditions, and failure modes.

Data Acquisition Architecture

• Define data acquisition requirements — sample rates, sensor accuracy, synchronization, filtering, storage — in close partnership with the modeling engineer.

What You'll Bring

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechatronics, or a related field.
• Experience: 5+ years developing and operating test equipment for electromechanical systems — motors, drivetrains, actuators, transmissions, or similar. At least one program where you owned a test capability from blank sheet through routine production use.
• Core Fundamentals: Strong grasp of the physics being measured — motor torque-speed behavior, gear efficiency, heat transfer, vibration — and the instrumentation that captures it. You know what an honest measurement looks like and what a misleading one looks like.
• Technical "Superpower": Deep proficiency in dyno design and electromechanical test rig development. You can size a load motor, select a torque transducer, design a coupling that won't add measurement error, and build the control software that ties it all together.
• Instrumentation & DAQ: Hands-on experience with torque transducers, encoders, current/voltage measurement, thermocouples/RTDs, accelerometers, and the data acquisition systems that read them (NI, dSPACE, Speedgoat, custom, etc.). Comfortable specifying sample rates, anti-aliasing, and synchronization for multi-domain measurements.
• Engineering Tools: Proficiency in CAD for fixture and rig design, and in MATLAB, Python, or LabVIEW for test automation and data analysis.
• The "Owner" Mindset: First-principles thinking, strong written communication, and the discipline to treat data quality as a non-negotiable. The downstream team is making million-dollar decisions on your numbers.

Bonus Points (The "Plus" List)

• Motor & Drive Depth: Hands-on experience commissioning servo drives, tuning current/velocity/position loops, and characterizing PMSM/BLDC motors across full operating envelopes.
• Gear Testing: Experience with 4-square (back-to-back) gear rigs, FZG-style testing, or precision gear efficiency measurement. Familiarity with the failure modes of harmonic, cycloidal, or planetary gear systems.
• Thermal & Fluid Testing: Background in coolant loop design, calorimetry, or motor thermal characterization.
• Test Automation: Experience building automated test sequences, unattended overnight runs, and the data pipelines that turn raw captures into analyzed results without manual touchpoints.
• Reliability & Life Testing: Familiarity with B-life qualification, accelerated life testing, and the statistics of designing a durability test that actually proves something.
• Robotics or High-Performance Automotive: Prior experience testing actuators for legged robots, manipulators, EVs, or motorsport applications.