Senior Robotics Manual QA Engineer

Join Axon and be a Force for Good.

At Axon, we’re on a mission to Protect Life. We’re explorers, pursuing society’s most critical safety and justice issues with our ecosystem of devices and cloud software. Like our products, we work better together. We connect with candor and care, seeking out diverse perspectives from our customers, communities and each other.

Life at Axon is fast-paced, challenging and meaningful. Here, you’ll take ownership and drive real change. Constantly grow as you work hard for a mission that matters at a company where you matter.

Join Axon and be a Force for Good

At Axon, we’re on a mission to Protect Life. We’re explorers, pursuing society’s most critical safety and justice issues with our ecosystem of devices and cloud software. Like our products, we work better together. We connect with candor and care, seeking out diverse perspectives from our customers, communities and each other.

Life at Axon is fast-paced, challenging and meaningful. Here, you’ll take ownership and drive real change. Constantly grow as you work hard for a mission that matters at a company where you matter.

We are an equal opportunity employer that promotes justice, advances equity, values diversity and fosters inclusion. We’re committed to hiring the best talent — regardless of race, creed, color, ancestry, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship status, marital status, disability, gender identity, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances — and empowering all of our employees so they can do their best work. If you have a disability or special need that requires assistance or accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please email recruitingops@axon.com.

Axon’s mission is to Protect Life and is committed to the well-being and safety of its employees as well as Axon’s impact on the environment. All Axon employees must be aware of and committed to the appropriate environmental, health, and safety regulations, policies, and procedures. Axon employees are empowered to report safety concerns as they arise and activities potentially impacting the environment.

Your Impact

The Axon SkyHero Firmware team in the Robotics New Ventures Pillar supports critical Drone offerings for Special Forces and Law Enforcement. These Drones work together harmoniously to provide Tactical Reconnaissance and Advantage during critical and stressful missions. Both aerial and ground robots are developed, please see the product portfolio, here: https://www.axon.com/products/axon-sky-hero. We are actively working on truly disruptive innovative next-generation Drone technology that we strongly believe will advance our mission to Protect Life.

The Axon SkyHero Firmware team is a key team responsible for drone integration, with ownership of the “Lower-level Middleware” layers on a very powerful Embedded Linux System-on-Chip and the Flight Controller. All firmware aspects related to “Flying” are handled by this team, and this team collaborates very closely with an adjacent team of Controls and Vision Engineers.

As a strong Robotics Quality Assurance Sr. Engineer on the SkyHero Firmware team, you’ll be the first line of defense to ensure our next-generation drones fly, drive and have the responsiveness our Customers demand. You think with a critical and creative mind. You will derive complex Test Plans and Test Cases for our drones, thinking about the whole drone eco-system, with laser-focus on how they actually fly and drive. You will work with flight simulators, world-class Motion Capture Rooms (MoCap), and a variety of other lab bench equipment. In addition to manual testing, you will optimize your test efficiency by writing scripts in Python with AI-assistance that helps control the drones, parse log files, etc. You will collaborate with Firmware Engineers, Controls Engineers, Product Managers, Software Test Automation Engineers and other Robotics QA Engineers to achieve the best possible quality output.

Working on these next-generation robotics products Axon is building is not only a career-defining accomplishment, but also a real opportunity to help advance the mission to Protect Life.

What You’ll Do

Location: Brussels, Belgium
Reports to: Robotics Firmware Engineering Manager

• Be part of a high-performing team that designs and develops game-changing Robotics products to Protect Life
• Derive and write comprehensive Test Plans, Test Cases while thinking critically about Customer work-flows and edge cases
• Leverage Jira and Zephyr to keep work organized and team aligned on bug triage
• Work with engineers to understand “Flight Tuning” outcomes and physically fly and drive drones to verify expected behaviors
• Turn subjective “Touchy Feely” flight and driving drone behavior and unstable edge cases into evidence-driven, repeatable tests
• Own flight/ground test execution in Brussels, including test setup, runbooks, evidence capture (e.g., logs, video), and repeatability
• Be an integral part of the team and help drive the Release Calendar, Go/No-Go decisions, from a quality perspective
• Execute test cases for major releases, identify regressions, and communicate clearly repro steps to engineers
• Use AI Tooling to assist in writing test scripts and rudimentary automation workflows
• Be a Team Player, Mentor, Strong Communicator and be ready and willing to support the Team when needed
• Perform exploratory and chaos testing on entire drone eco-system to help engineers Look Around Corners
• Help track and identify drone product metrics ensuring consistency of operation over releases
• 2 - 4 Trips per year (1wk ea) to USA or Finland for team integration events during critical release gates
• Operate effectively across time zones with high-quality written updates, clean handoffs, and crisp defect artifacts

What You Bring

While all candidates will be considered, those candidates who have proven QA experience against Hardware-Software products will have prioritization over Software-only QA. Previous drone and robotics experience is not a hard requirement, but is desired.

• Bachelor’s Degree from an accredited University
• Minimum 7+ years of industry experience in Quality Assurance on complex products
• Strong technical writing skills
• Familiarity with using software tools, command-line and to load firmware binaries, pull log-files, etc.
• Strong English speaking fluency
• French, Dutch speaking fluency is a plus
• Basic functional coding knowledge in a leading scripting language (e.g., Python)
• Comfortable on Embedded Linux and command-line interfaces (e.g., flash builds, collect logs, basic networking)
• Familiarity with Git or similar source code control system
• Familiarity with CI/CD systems
• Demonstrable experience with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) eco-systems is a plus
• Experience flying Drones, with possession of any kind of Pilot’s License is a plus
• Experience scripting simple autonomous flight paths with common UAV frameworks is a plus
• Awareness of common UAV or Robotics frameworks (e.g., PX4, Ardupilot, Betaflight, ROS, etc.) is a plus
• Alignment to Axon’s Mission Statement and willingness to work near Conductive Energy Weapons (CEW)

Don’t meet every single requirement? That's ok. At Axon, we Aim Far. We think big with a long-term view because we want to reinvent the world to be a safer, better place. We are also committed to building diverse teams that reflect the communities we serve.

Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they check every box in the job description. If you’re excited about this role and our mission to Protect Life but your experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification listed here, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Important Notes

The above job description is not intended as, nor should it be construed as, exhaustive of all duties, responsibilities, skills, efforts, or working conditions associated with this job. The job description may change or be supplemented at any time in accordance with business needs and conditions.

Some roles may also require legal eligibility to work in a firearms environment.

We collect personal information from applicants to evaluate candidates for employment. You may request access, deletion, or exercise other CCPA rights at axongreenhousesupport@axon.com or via our Axon Privacy Web Form. For more information, please see the Your California Privacy Rights section of our Applicant and Candidate Privacy Notice.

Axon’s mission is to Protect Life and is committed to the well-being and safety of its employees as well as Axon’s impact on the environment. All Axon employees must be aware of and committed to the appropriate environmental, health, and safety regulations, policies, and procedures. Axon employees are empowered to report safety concerns as they arise and activities potentially impacting the environment.

We are an equal opportunity employer that promotes justice, advances equity, values diversity and fosters inclusion. We’re committed to hiring the best talent — regardless of race, creed, color, ancestry, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship status, marital status, disability, gender identity, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances — and empowering all of our employees so they can do their best work. If you have a disability or special need that requires assistance or accommodation during the application or the recruiting process, please email recruitingops@axon.com.  Please note that this email address is for accommodation purposes only. Axon will not respond to inquiries for other purposes.