Manager, Systems Integration & Test

The Role

We aim to establish the Span panel as the center of home energy and the backbone of the renewable distributed grid. To accomplish this, we will have to integrate with everything — or at least with every solar inverter, every storage battery, and every high-power smart appliance we can get our hands-on. We are also working on a lineup of advanced hardware products for which the Span panel is just a start (see Span Drive, our new Level 2 EV charger!). Along with system complexity comes along with a need for high reliability since our hardware replaces very reliable electrical distribution infrastructure such as circuit breaker panels. Taken together, this means a very clear need for great systems integration and thorough test.

As our head of Systems Integration & Test, you’ll play a key role in helping Span ship complex hardware that also works well. You’ll hire and manage a best-in-class team of integration and test engineers and be part of an engineering team that’s fast-paced, ambitious, and top-caliber but still prioritizes work/life balance. You’ll work closely with other engineering leaders at Span to figure out what to test and when and be a key contributor to Span’s overall product development plan and timelines. And you’ll work on and supervise bringup and verification plans for novel and innovative hardware and software systems that are redefining how the electrical grid can work.

Responsibilities

• Hire and manage a team of top-notch integration engineers, test engineers, technicians, and automation design engineers

• Play a key role in engineering roadmapping, timeline estimation, and design, ensuring that integration and test are accounted for on timelines and that the right integration milestones are selected

• Supervise the continued adoption of systems integration as an organizational pattern; teach integration engineers how to work effectively, and socialize how integration works to the rest of the Engineering department

• Bottom-line integration test plans for new software features, hardware products, and third-party integrations, making sure they’re comprehensive and well prioritized for risk

• Work closely with Hardware, Software, and Systems Engineering to develop product timelines, design test fixtures, plan bringup efforts, and identify risk areas for focused testing

• Work with Software QA, R&D software-in-the-loop modeling teams, and hardware-in-the-loop firmware teams to align effort, write test plans, and hand off regression test activities

• Guide long-term planning for space/power allocation in our new dedicated R&D / integration / test facility in South SF, with support from that facility’s lab manager and team

• Plan, build, maintain, and operate automated system-level regression test platforms, with engineering support from Span’s excellent R&D Infrastructure team

• Maintain high levels of automation and good coding standards for automated test

About You

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering or related field

• 3+ years' experience in engineering management

• 5+ years in test, systems integration, or systems engineering

• Experience with project management and time estimation in fast-moving, ambitious technical teams

• Experience specifying and procuring test equipment, data acquisition systems, etc.

• Strong fundamentals in electrical engineering and software

• Good software development practices

• Understanding of the tradeoffs between automated and manual test

• Strong communication and interpersonal skills

• Ability to understand and explain complex problems simply and effectively

Bonus Qualifications

• Experience writing Python or similar scripting languages

• Domain experience in distributed energy: inverters, batteries, PV

• Understanding of computer networking, TCP/IP; comfort working in Unix environments