Battery Test Engineer

About the role

Responsibilities

• Own test planning and hands-on execution for lithium-ion cells and aircraft battery packs.
• Plan and execute electrical and thermal performance characterization of cell candidates and prototype packs, including capacity, DCIR, power capability, mission-profile cycling, and thermal response across temperature.
• Operate high-power battery cyclers, cell cyclers, and environmental chambers, and maintain test profiles, data pipelines, and test-article configuration records.
• Deliver correlation-ready datasets to the simulation team and support model-versus-test comparison.
• Design, build, and execute thermal-runaway initiation, propagation, containment, venting, and mitigation tests, including fabrication of test articles, trigger methods, fixtures, and instrumentation appropriate to test objectives.
• Develop environmental and durability tests covering temperature, thermal cycling, altitude or low-pressure exposure, humidity, vibration, mechanical shock, and transportation conditions as applicable.
• Define test objectives, hazards, instrumentation needs, data-acquisition architecture, trigger logic, sampling rates, acceptance criteria, and stop conditions.
• Prepare test articles, fixtures, chambers, power equipment, cooling systems, sensors, high-speed video, thermal imaging, and data-acquisition systems.
• Lead test readiness reviews, job-hazard analyses, emergency planning, exclusion-zone definition, and coordination with EHS, facilities, fire-safety, and external laboratories.
• Execute testing safely, monitor tests in real time, respond to anomalies, and protect personnel, facilities, test assets, and data integrity.
• Analyze temperature, voltage, current, pressure, gas, flame, ejecta, and propagation behavior, as applicable to the test objective and facility capability.
• Author clear test plans, procedures, reports, nonconformance records, root-cause assessments, and design recommendations.
• Support model correlation and work with design engineers to improve containment, cooling, sensing, venting, and protection strategies.
• Manage external test laboratories, including statement-of-work development, setup reviews, witnessing, data acceptance, and issue resolution.
• Maintain calibrated instrumentation, safe lab practices, test configuration control, data traceability, and lessons learned.
• Support transportation and environmental compliance test programs, including UN 38.3 activities, when applicable to the product and program phase.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Aerospace, Electrical, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, or a related technical field.
• Three or more years of hands-on battery, environmental, abuse, reliability, or aerospace hardware testing experience.
• Experience designing instrumented tests and selecting thermocouples, voltage and current measurement, pressure sensing, thermal imaging, and data-acquisition hardware.
• Working knowledge of lithium-ion battery hazards, high-voltage safety, stored-energy hazards, fire risk, and safe test operations.
• Experience developing test fixtures, procedures, hazard controls, and technical reports.
• Ability to troubleshoot hardware, instrumentation, wiring, communications, and data-quality issues in the laboratory.
• Ability to work on-site and safely support physically hands-on test setup and execution.
• Experience conducting or witnessing battery thermal-runaway, propagation, overcharge, external heating, short-circuit, crush, or penetration testing.
• Experience with environmental chambers, vibration systems, thermal cycling, altitude chambers, shock testing, and high-power battery pack cyclers (e.g., Chroma, etc.) or cell cyclers (e.g., Biologic, Arbin).
• Experience with electric aircraft, EV, UAV, aerospace, defense, or other safety-critical energy systems.
• Familiarity with UN 38.3 and relevant battery or aerospace environmental-test standards, with the judgment to confirm applicability before defining a compliance plan.
• Experience with LabVIEW, Python, MATLAB, Dewesoft, NI hardware, or comparable data-acquisition and analysis environments.
• Experience with fire-safe test cells, exhaust and gas handling, remote monitoring, blast or fragment protection, and emergency-response coordination.
• Experience managing outside laboratories and reviewing supplier test evidence.