About Albus Health

Albus Health is an Oxford University spin-out transforming how health data is collected and used in clinical trials and drug development.

We have developed Albus Home, a contactless multisensory platform that continuously captures physiological and behavioural data during sleep without wearables or user interaction.

Although our technology includes a physical device, Albus is fundamentally a health-data technology company. Our devices collect sensor data, including audio and radar, and connect to our cloud infrastructure for remote management and data transfer. Signal-processing and machine-learning pipelines then transform this data into clinically useful measures such as cough counts, breathing rate and heart rate.

Our technology is already deployed internationally in clinical trials, primarily with pharmaceutical companies, and its use is growing rapidly.

The Role

We are looking for a Principal Systems Test & Automation Engineer to take significant technical ownership of testing and test automation across the Albus platform.

This is a senior, hands-on engineering role spanning a complex, multi-component system including cloud software and infrastructure, data-processing pipelines, signal-processing and machine-learning algorithms, connected devices and supporting applications.

A central focus of the role is testing complex, multi-stage data-processing systems, where raw sensor data passes through multiple interconnected software components and algorithms before producing the final results. You will need to understand how data flows through the system, how the different stages interact, and where data could be lost, corrupted, incorrectly processed or otherwise produce unexpected results.

We are looking for someone with strong investigative and problem-solving skills who enjoys understanding how complex systems work, questioning assumptions, anticipating failure modes and systematically identifying the causes of unexpected behaviour.

You will work closely with engineers and scientists to understand the intended behaviour of individual components and the overall system, translate requirements and technical knowledge into effective tests, and establish how to verify that data is correctly processed and transferred between stages.

You will personally design and implement automated tests, develop and improve our testing frameworks and infrastructure, and help establish an effective verification approach across component, subsystem and system levels.

This is not a traditional Test Manager role. Line management is limited, and we are looking for someone who takes ownership, stays close to the technology, and has the curiosity and independence to investigate problems and drive improvements.

Why Join Albus Health?

You will take ownership of a critical function within Albus, testing technology already deployed internationally and scaling rapidly.

You will work on technically challenging problems involving complex data flows, interconnected processing pipelines, cloud infrastructure, connected devices and machine-learning algorithms.

Unlike conventional software testing roles, much of the challenge lies in understanding how the entire system behaves, anticipating where things might go wrong, and designing tests capable of detecting subtle failures that may not be immediately visible.

You will have significant freedom to improve our test automation, testing infrastructure, development and release processes, and to explore how AI-assisted approaches can make testing more effective.

This is an opportunity to make a visible impact in a growing company, with substantial technical autonomy and the freedom to shape how testing is done as the product develops.

Location & Working Arrangements

This is an Oxford-based hybrid role, combining regular time working with the team in our Oxford office with flexibility to work from home.

Requirements

About You

You are a senior test engineer with strong investigative skills, systems thinking, technical curiosity, initiative and a strong sense of ownership.

You enjoy understanding how complex systems work, following data through multiple processing stages, anticipating where things could go wrong and systematically investigating unexpected behaviour. You are comfortable working independently, challenging assumptions and designing effective tests that expose failures which might otherwise go unnoticed.

You combine strong testing judgement with practical automation skills, and are comfortable working closely with engineers and scientists to understand the expected behaviour of complex software.

You will have:

• Significant professional experience in software, systems or product testing at a senior level.
• Hands-on experience testing complex, multi-stage data-processing systems, where data passes through multiple interconnected components and undergoes significant transformation before producing final outputs. This could include ETL/data pipelines, scientific or numerical processing, signal processing, machine learning or similar systems.
• Excellent investigative and fault-isolation skills, with demonstrated ability to trace unexpected results through multiple processing stages, identify root causes and distinguish data, configuration, integration and processing failures.
• Strong experience identifying risks, weaknesses and potential failure modes, and translating these into effective tests that detect problems before release.
• Strong experience designing and implementing test automation, rather than simply executing existing automated tests.
• Practical Python programming skills, sufficient to independently develop, debug and maintain automated tests and supporting tools.
• Hands-on experience testing cloud-based systems, services and data flows, ideally on AWS, including investigating failures across interconnected services.
• Experience testing complex products comprising multiple interacting components or subsystems, with a strong understanding of integration and end-to-end testing.
• Strong systems thinking, including the ability to understand requirements, establish traceability and design verification at component, subsystem and system levels.
• Hands-on experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines and release workflows, including automated execution, reporting and investigation of failures.
• Practical experience using AI-assisted tools in testing or software engineering, while applying independent engineering judgement to their outputs.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to work effectively with software engineers, data scientists and other technical specialists.

Desirable Experience

The following would be useful but are not essential:

• Experience working autonomously in a small company, start-up or similarly fast-moving environment, taking ownership of problems and delivering solutions without relying on a large dedicated test organisation.
• Experience applying formal systems-engineering methodologies, including the V-model, requirements traceability and structured verification planning.
• Experience with quantitative or statistical acceptance criteria and data-driven testing.
• Biomedical, healthcare or digital-health experience.
• Experience in regulated medical technology environments.
• Familiarity with IEC 62304, ISO 13485 or related medical-device standards.

Benefits

Standard Employee Benefits

• Employee share option scheme
• 22 days' annual leave plus UK bank holidays
• Company pension scheme
• Generous maternity and paternity leave in accordance with our company policy
• Monthly company lunch and regular informal team activities

Additional Flexibility for This Role

In addition to our standard employee benefits, this role is being offered with:

• Flexible working hours, with core collaboration hours of 11am–4pm
• Hybrid working, combining regular time working with the team in our office with flexibility to work from home