Test Architect (Aircraft Platform)

Job Title: Test Architect – Aircraft Onboard Platform and Application Systems
Department: Quality Engineering / Test Engineering
Location: (onsite) – Hillsboro, OR
Duration: Long-term Contract 

Role Summary
We are looking for a hands-on Test Architect to own the end-to-end test strategy for an aircraft-wide, edge-compute application hosting platform spanning hardware, embedded software, connectivity, AI-driven features, and a multi-tenant application ecosystem. This role blends strategic ownership (defining and evolving the detailed test strategy), technical leadership (guiding and mentoring the test team), and hands-on execution (test plan execution and building automation frameworks/scripts). The ideal candidate is equally comfortable authoring a test architecture document and writing automation code.

Key Responsibilities
1. Test Strategy & Architecture
• Own and continuously evolve the platform-wide Test Strategy Document — covering Development/Feature/Functionality , integration, system, performance, connectivity, security, CI/CD, and certification-adjacent testing
• Define the testing approach for each architectural layer ( platform services, application, data/sync) and ensure test coverage scales with architectural risk (e.g., shared-resource isolation, third-party app sandboxing)
• Design the test environment and lab infrastructure strategy, including physical lab, virtualized/simulated environments, and network/connectivity emulation
• Define entry/exit criteria, test levels, and release-gating standards across the test lifecycle

2. Team Leadership & Guidance
• Lead and mentor a cross-functional test team (functional, integration, performance, security, hardware/environmental testers)
• Set technical direction and best practices for test design, execution, and automation across the team
• Review test plans, test cases, and automation scripts authored by team members; provide technical guidance and quality gate sign-off
• Act as the primary technical point of contact between the test team and architecture/engineering stakeholders

3. Test Plan Execution
• Translate the test strategy into detailed, executable test plans per release/sprint
• Plan and coordinate execution across test levels (unit through system/E2E) and test areas (functional, integration, performance, connectivity resilience, security, CI/CD)
• Track test execution progress, defect trends, and coverage metrics; report release readiness to stakeholders
• Drive root-cause analysis and cross-application regression risk assessment for defects found during execution

4. Automation Script Development
• Design and build the automation framework(s) for regression, integration, and performance testing
• Personally develop automation scripts for critical-path and high-risk scenarios (e.g., cross-application resource contention, connectivity resilience under simulated network impairment, CI/CD pipeline validation)
• Integrate automated test suites into the CI/CD pipeline as build/release gates
• Continuously expand automation coverage and reduce manual regression effort over time

5. Traceability & Tooling
• Own the Jira/Xray traceability framework — requirement-to-test-case-to-defect linkage, test plan/test set structuring, and release reporting
• Ensure test evidence is audit-ready, including for certification-adjacent test areas

Required Qualifications
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Electronics Engineering, or related field (Master's preferred)
• 8+ years in software/systems testing, with at least 2–3 years in a test architect, lead, or principal test engineer capacity
• Proven experience defining test strategy for a complex, multi-component or platform-level system (not just single-application testing)
• Strong hands-on experience building test automation frameworks (not just using existing ones) — e.g., API-level automation, UI automation, performance/load testing tools
• Practical experience with CI/CD pipelines and integrating automated tests as pipeline gates
• Strong working knowledge of Jira + Xray (or equivalent test management/traceability tooling)
• Solid understanding of networking concepts — connectivity resilience, degraded/intermittent network conditions, and network testing tools/emulators
• Experience with multi-tenant / shared-resource systems and the isolation, security, and contention-testing challenges they introduce
• Strong programming/scripting ability for automation (e.g., Python, Java, or similar) and API/test-tool scripting
• Excellent written communication skills — able to author clear, structured strategy and planning documents

Preferred / Nice-to-Have
• Experience in avionics, aerospace, automotive, or other safety-adjacent regulated industries, particularly with DO-178C / DO-160 or equivalent certification-linked testing standards
• Experience testing edge-computing — systems that must operate reliably with intermittent/constrained connectivity
• Experience testing platforms with an open developer/SDK ecosystem (third-party or partner-developed applications running on shared infrastructure)
• Familiarity with AI/ML system testing — validating AI-generated outputs, accuracy/drift monitoring, and testing local/edge AI inference
• Prior experience standing up a test program from early stage (as opposed to only maintaining an established one)

Key Competencies
• Strategic + hands-on balance: equally credible writing architecture-level strategy and personally writing automation code
• Cross-functional leadership: able to guide a team while also collaborating closely with software architects, developers, and certification/compliance stakeholders
• Risk-based thinking: able to prioritize test investment based on architectural risk (e.g., shared blast radius, third-party app unpredictability) rather than treating all areas equally
• Clear communicator: able to translate complex technical test status into clear risk/readiness reporting for leadership
• Ownership mindset: comfortable being the accountable owner of test strategy and quality outcomes, not just an execution resource