Production Test Engineer
Physical Intelligence is hiring a Production Test Engineer in San Francisco, United States. Level rates it ; you can apply on Physical Intelligence.
Level's read on this job
- On Level's scale, this role is Works on AI ●●●○: the daily work is on AI products, without building the model.
- The posting mentions Linux, computer vision and production test among its tools and skills.
- Level classes it as a senior role.
- Physical Intelligence has 43 other open roles on Level.
AI in this role
Builds manufacturing and test software platforms to scale production of robotic foundation model systems.
Physical Intelligence is bringing general-purpose AI into the physical world. We are a team of engineers, scientists, roboticists, and company builders developing foundation models and learning algorithms to power the robots of today and the physically actuated devices of the future.
We’re looking for a Production Test Lead to build the software foundation for manufacturing Physical Intelligence’s robotic systems at increasing volume.
You’ll own the systems that technicians use to flash firmware, provision devices, configure hardware, execute calibration and test procedures, and record manufacturing results. You’ll translate evolving engineering processes into safe, guided workflows that can be executed consistently without requiring technicians to use a command line or understand the underlying implementation.
This role sits at the intersection of runtime software, hardware engineering, manufacturing, test, infrastructure, and inventory systems. You will work closely with those teams to turn prototype scripts and manual procedures into secure, observable, versioned production tooling.
In this role you will
Own the architecture and development of PI’s manufacturing software platform.
Build technician-friendly, step-by-step workflows for assembly, flashing, provisioning, calibration, and final test.
Convert engineering scripts and manual procedures into versioned, repeatable manufacturing operations.
Develop local station software that securely exposes allowlisted hardware capabilities to hosted manufacturing workflows.
Design workflow primitives for automated steps, operator instructions, retries, timeouts, cancellation, resumability, and acceptance criteria.
Build reliable mechanisms for downloading, caching, verifying, and updating firmware and manufacturing binaries.
Integrate manufacturing workflows with inventory systems to register hardware, assign identities, and record required metadata.
Establish traceability for operators, stations, devices, software versions, step results, durations, and captured test artifacts.
Debug problems across cloud services, local Linux stations, networks, embedded devices, and test equipment.
Partner with manufacturing and hardware engineers to define acceptance criteria and automate quality checks.
What we hope you'll bring
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Robotics, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
5+ years of software engineering experience, preferably involving manufacturing, robotics, hardware test, embedded systems, or fleet operations.
Strong Python experience and familiarity with Linux systems, services, permissions, packaging, and process management.
Experience building reliable web applications and APIs used to orchestrate local or remote hardware.
Experience designing stateful workflows with retries, timeouts, resumability, cancellation, and failure recovery.
Familiarity with device provisioning, firmware flashing, OTA updates, calibration, or automated hardware testing.
Experience integrating with inventory, traceability, MES, ERP, or similar production systems.
Strong understanding of asynchronous jobs, idempotency, durable state, and distributed-system failure modes.
Experience with secure artifact distribution, authentication, authorization, and least-privilege hardware access.
Ability to diagnose issues across browsers, networks, operating systems, backend services, and physical devices.
Strong product judgment for technician-facing workflows and operational tooling.
Excellent cross-functional communication and project-management skills.
Bonus points if you have
Experience with robotics, computer vision, camera calibration, networking hardware, Raspberry Pi-class devices, Bazel, Kubernetes, or cloud infrastructure.
Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.
How we rate this
Production Test Engineer at Physical Intelligence rates 60 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Works on AI (AI Level 3 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Works on AI. The daily work is on AI products, without building the model.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Questions you could be asked
- Walk me through a computer vision problem you solved, from raw data to a deployed model.
- Tell me about a project where production test was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where software architecture was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where firmware flashing was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where hardware testing was part of your work. What did you do?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Computer vision, Production Test, Software Architecture, Firmware Flashing, and Hardware Testing. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
- Show where AI is part of your daily process, not a one-off project. This role expects it to be a running habit.
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