Robotics Automation Engineer in Test at MachinaLabs – Chatsworth, California

About Machina Labs:

At Machina Labs, we’re reshaping manufacturing through advanced robotics and machine learning. Our platform uses the largest 6-axis robots on the market to form 2D sheets of metal into complex 3D parts, layer-by-layer.

Traditional sheet metal production was designed for scale, not flexibility. It relies on costly dies and tooling that make lower volume projects prohibitively slow and expensive. We’re changing that. Whether you’re a startup building a few thousand airframes or an automaker prototyping next-generation components, Machina Labs gives you the ability to iterate and manufacture at the speed of software.

With support from the venture arms of Toyota, NVIDIA, and Lockheed Martin, we’re accelerating the future of manufacturing, one where factories are flexible, production is on-demand, and innovation is unconstrained.

Job Description:

Machina Labs is seeking a Robotics Automation Engineer in Test to own quality, validation, and release execution across our robotics and industrial automation software stack as we deploy and scale production cells.

This role is responsible for defining and enforcing quality strategy for robotics and automation systems, validating release candidates, and supporting deployments to production cells. You will work hands-on with physical systems, running tests and experiments on cells, supporting issue triage, and acting as a gatekeeper for production releases. This position operates closely with robotics, controls, and software teams and has the authority to approve the transition from release candidate to official release.

The ideal candidate combines strong robotics and automation engineering fundamentals with a disciplined approach to testing, validation, and production readiness in hardware-integrated environments.

• Own and drive quality strategy for the robotics and industrial automation software stack, including ROS2, C++, Python, Beckhoff TwinCAT, and Structured Text PLCs.
• Define, formalize, and maintain test plans, validation procedures, and release criteria for robotics and automation systems.
• Execute smoke tests, system validation, and acceptance testing of release candidates on production cells.
• Serve as release authority, approving or blocking promotion from release candidate to official production release.
• Deploy software and automation releases to production cells and support rollout activities.
• Automate testing and validation workflows to improve coverage, reliability, and release velocity.
• Run tests and experiments on production and development cells, independently or in collaboration with robotics and automation engineers.
• Triage and support cell-level issues, performing initial investigation and escalating to engineering teams as needed.
• Partner with Software Engineers in Test when required, including large release validation, user support, feedback collection, and extended testing efforts.
• Contribute to continuous improvement of testing, deployment, and validation processes as the platform scales.

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or comparable practical experience.
• Experience testing software systems, including writing test scripts or test code.
• Hands-on experience with automated testing frameworks or tools.
• Ability to debug issues across software and automation interfaces.
• Strong problem-solving and communication skills.

• Experience testing industrial automation systems, robotics, or hardware-software integrated products.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, versioned deployments, and release validation.
• Experience supporting deployments and troubleshooting issues in production environments.
• Background working in small, fast-moving engineering teams where quality ownership is critical.