Sr. Hardware Test Engineer

Job title: Sr. HW TEST ENGINEER

Summary/Objective: The Sr. hardware (HW) Test Engineer owns electrical and high-speed hardware test for Samtec optical products, namely on-board optical engines and modules such as the FireFly™ family, in vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL)-based multimode and silicon photonics (SiPh) variants and including optical PCI Express, and pluggable optical transceivers built with original design manufacturer (ODM) partners. The role develops electrical, high-speed signal, and control-interface test methods and automated test stations for engineering validation and production, correlates results across the Samtec Taiwan lab, Samtec manufacturing sites, and original design manufacturer / contract manufacturer (ODM/CM) production test, and isolates hardware failures efficiently. It requires strong knowledge of component behavior, circuit operation, signal integrity (SI) and power integrity (PI), digital signal processor (DSP)/microcontroller unit (MCU) control interfaces, and high-speed serial link test methodology.

Essential Functions/ Responsibilities:

1. Develop electrical and high-speed hardware test plans, test limits, test flows, and validation methods for optical engines and transceivers, from engineering validation test (EVT) and design validation test (DVT) through production release.

2. Characterize and validate electronic components and interfaces, including DSPs and retimers, MCUs, power management integrated circuits (ICs), clocks, electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM), sensors, laser-driver and transimpedance amplifier (TIA) electrical interfaces, and protection circuits; read and analyze schematics, power trees, transmit/receive (Tx/Rx) electrical paths, control interfaces, clock/reset circuits, and high-speed signal paths, and feed findings back to the design team.

3. Perform electrical testing: voltage, current, module power, power sequencing, ripple/noise, inrush current, clock, reset, control signals, and interface timing.

4. Perform high-speed electrical Tx/Rx characterization at 28G non-return-to-zero (NRZ) and 56G/112G/224G four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM4) per lane: bit error ratio (BER), eye diagram, jitter, forward error correction (FEC) statistics, clock and data recovery (CDR) behavior, transmitter finite impulse response (FIR) and receiver continuous-time linear equalizer and decision feedback equalizer (CTLE/DFE) equalization, and loopback testing.

5. Perform or support SI/PI characterization of modules, host boards, and fixtures: insertion loss, return loss, impedance, time-domain reflectometry (TDR), crosstalk, and S-parameters.

6. Validate module management and control functions: inter-integrated circuit and management data input/output (I2C/MDIO) communication, EEPROM and memory maps, alarms and warnings, reset and low-power states, module state-machine behavior, and firmware–hardware interactions, per Common Management Interface Specification (CMIS) for pluggable transceivers and Samtec interface definitions for on-board optics.

7. Build, integrate, maintain, and troubleshoot high-speed test platforms: bit error ratio testers (BERTs), real-time and sampling oscilloscopes, vector network analyzers (VNAs), TDR instruments, host and evaluation boards, fixtures, cables, and Ethernet-switch or PCI Express host platforms.

8. Develop and maintain automated test software, instrument control, data logging, limit management, traceability, and reporting in Python, LabVIEW, C#, or equivalent.

9. Perform test correlation, measurement system analysis and gauge repeatability and reproducibility (MSA/GR&R), reference-plane verification, cable and fixture de-embedding and loss compensation, calibration control, and golden-sample management across the Samtec Taiwan lab, Samtec manufacturing sites, and ODM/CM production test.

10. Analyze test data and isolate failures among device hardware, components, circuits, firmware settings, SI/PI, fixtures, cables, instruments, software, environment, and manufacturing process; drive closure with design, product, and quality engineering.

11. Improve test time, retest rate, false-failure rate, test coverage, station stability, and production test capability; support test deployment and transfer to Samtec manufacturing sites and ODM/CM partners.

12. Mentor engineers and technicians and establish hardware test lab practices and documentation.

13. Participate in reviewing and responding to suppliers' specification responses, waiver/deviation requests, test reports, root cause analysis (RCA) reports, process change notifications (PCNs), and related technical documents, with focus on electrical, high-speed hardware, and test impacts.

“The responsibilities as defined are intended to serve as a general guideline for this position. Associates may be asked to perform additional tasks depending on strengths and capabilities.”

Experience / Qualifications (Ideal Candidate Profile):

These qualifications describe the ideal candidate profile; candidates with a strong partial match may also be considered during initial screening.

1. Bachelor's degree or above in Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Communications Engineering, or a related technical discipline.

2. Ideally, 5+ years of hardware test, or hardware design and validation, experience on high-speed optical modules, transceivers, serializer/deserializer (SerDes) or physical-layer device (PHY) devices, or similar high-speed electronic products.

3. A strong understanding of electronic components, analog/digital and power circuits, control interfaces, and high-speed serial links is preferred.

4. Working knowledge of NRZ/PAM4 signaling, BER, FEC, jitter, eye diagrams, CDR, equalization, SI, and PI.

5. Ability to read schematics and troubleshoot hardware with oscilloscopes, BERTs, VNAs, TDR instruments, and equivalent laboratory equipment.

6. Working knowledge of DSP, MCU, power IC, clock, EEPROM, sensor, driver/TIA electrical interfaces, and module control functions.

7. Experience developing automated test with Python, LabVIEW, C#, C/C++, or equivalent programming environments.

8. Strong debugging, data analysis, failure isolation, and root cause analysis skills are preferred; good written and verbal English communication skills.

Preferred Experience / Desired Skills:

1. Experience with 400G, 800G, or 1.6T optical transceivers, on-board or mid-board optical engines, or other 112G/224G PAM4 platforms; VCSEL-based multimode and SiPh products are both relevant.

2. Experience with CMIS, I2C/MDIO, module evaluation boards, Ethernet-switch/BERT platforms, and PCI Express (Gen 5/Gen 6) host and link testing.

3. Experience with S-parameter, TDR, insertion loss, return loss, crosstalk, and high-speed fixture and cable characterization and de-embedding.

4. Experience with test correlation, MSA/GR&R, guard banding, measurement uncertainty, and production test deployment, including transfer to ODM/CM partners.

5. Knowledge of optical module architecture and the electrical-to-optical interaction among DSP/retimer, driver, laser, photodiode (PD), and TIA; able to run combined electrical/optical debug with the optoelectronic (OE) test engineer.

6. Self-motivated, well organized, and able to work independently and cross-functionally with teams in Taiwan, the United States, and partner sites.

7. Ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally as needed.

Training required

1. On-the-job training as appropriate.

2. Product-, process-, test-, quality-, and safety-specific training as required by assigned responsibilities.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.