SDET Firmware Automation

Lightmatter is leading the revolution in AI data center infrastructure, enabling the next giant leaps in human progress. The company invented the world’s first 3D-stacked photonics engine, Passage™, capable of connecting thousands to millions of processors at the speed of light in extreme-scale data centers for the most advanced AI and HPC workloads.

Lightmatter raised $400 million in its Series D round, reaching a valuation of $4.4 billion. We will continue to accelerate the development of data center photonics and grow every department at Lightmatter!

If you're passionate about tackling complex challenges, making an impact, and being an expert in your craft, join our team of brilliant scientists, engineers, and accomplished industry leaders.

Lightmatter is (re)inventing the future of computing with light!

At Lightmatter, an SDET is a software engineer first , not a QA coordinator or manual tester. You'll design and build the frameworks, harnesses, and hardware-in-the-loop infrastructure that let firmware engineers test their own code continuously on real photonic hardware. You'll sit with the firmware team, spend time at the bench with oscilloscopes, debuggers, and optical instruments, and serve as the bridge between firmware and broader software and systems organizations.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture and roadmap of the firmware test automation framework across products, targets, sites, and teams
• Design and build stable automation for new firmware features and hardware, held to production-quality engineering standards
• Build and operate HIL test infrastructure: bench and rack fixtures, device farms, power/reset control, instrument integration, and CI orchestration on real photonic hardware
• Define test strategy, plans, and reporting; lead test plan reviews across teams
• Integrate firmware testing into CI/CD so every change is built, flashed, exercised on hardware, and reported automatically
• Own framework reliability and flaky test metrics as first-class engineering problems
• Build results, telemetry, and log pipelines for triage, trend analysis, and release decisions
• Debug failures across the full stack (firmware, board, instrument, fixture, test code) and partner with engineers to resolve them
• Participate in firmware design reviews to influence testability and diagnostics early
• Integrate with data center management interfaces (CMIS, OpenBMC, DMTF); debug embedded systems using GDB, JTAG, and logic analyzers
• Define diagnostics and monitoring architecture for photonic transceivers
• Mentor engineers on test architecture and write clear documentation for non-specialists