About this Sr. Test Engineer role at Velo3d
As a Senior Test Engineer, you own how Velo3D proves its metal additive manufacturing printers are ready to ship and keeps them running. Every printer passes through three stages of test:
• Subsystem bring-up (Level 600) — power up and verify each subsystem in turn: electrical and safety interlocks, argon gas and compressed air, cooling, motion, powder handling, laser optics, controls and software.
• System validation (Level 700) — confirm the subsystems work together and the printer meets its acceptance criteria.
• Final qualification (Level 800) — the last qualification checks and sign-off before a printer is released.
You own the procedures for bring-up and validation, sign off final qualification, and keep our internal printers qualified and available. Test Technicians execute your procedures; you are their technical escalation point.
Success looks like higher first-pass yield, shorter bring-up cycle time, failures caught in test rather than in the field, and recurring incidents closed with permanent fixes.
Responsibilities
• Procedures — Author, revise and release the bring-up (Level 600) and system validation (Level 700) procedures through engineering change control; set acceptance limits.
• Final qualification — Own Level 800 qualification and release sign-off; direct technician support and confirm printers arrive from system validation complete.
• Test equipment — Specify, build and validate test stations, fixtures and instrumentation; own gauge capability and calibration requirements.
• Internal fleet — Own incidents on internal printers to closure (ITRS, Splunk, Datadog); support software releases and user acceptance testing.
• Root cause — Lead root cause and permanent corrective action for test failures and recurring incidents with Hardware, Software, suppliers and Quality.
• Data and automation — Track yield, cycle time and downtime; write Shell/Python tooling to automate data capture, monitoring and repetitive steps.
• People and quality — Train Test Technicians on procedures, mentor junior engineers, and keep records to AS9100 standards.
Qualifications
• Bachelor’s in Electrical, Mechanical, Mechatronics or related engineering, or equivalent experience.
• 3–5 years in test, bring-up or manufacturing engineering on complex capital equipment (semiconductor, laser, medical, aerospace or automation).
• Has authored and released revision-controlled test procedures and led root cause to a verified fix.
• Hands-on across electrical (schematics, DMM, scope, megger), gas and fluid systems (P&IDs, leak-down), precision motion and optics.
• Controls and computing: firmware, PLC/controller interfaces, IP/Modbus networking, Linux/Windows, Shell and Python.
• Clear communicator who makes decisions from data and never skips a step under schedule pressure.
Preferred:
• Experience taking a new product from prototype into production test (new product introduction).
• Laser systems or metal additive manufacturing experience.
• Tracking equipment reliability and uptime — mean time between failures (MTBF) and mean time to repair (MTTR).
• Statistical process control (SPC) to monitor test results, and measurement system analysis (MSA) to prove test equipment is accurate and repeatable.
• Structured root cause methods such as 8D (eight-step problem solving) and 5-Why.
• Working in an aerospace or ISO quality system (AS9100 or ISO 9001).
Working Conditions
• Export control: must be ITAR-compliant (U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident).
• Laser safety, LOTO, compressed gas and metal powder training provided and must be maintained.
• Onsite at Fremont and Livermore; exposure to high voltage, Class 4 lasers, inert gases, metal powders and noise; PPE as posted.
• Standing, ladders and occasional confined spaces; lift up to 50 lbs; occasional off-shift work for machine-down events
