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Software & System Test Engineer (Lead, Automation & AI-Driven QA)

Hawthorne, California, United States

CHAOS Industries is redefining modern defense with omniscient systems purpose-built for today’s realities. Designed and built by top U.S. military veterans and Silicon Valley innovators, CHAOS Industries’ products are powered by Coherent Distributed Networks (CDN™), empowering warfighters, commercial air operators, and border protection teams to act faster, adapt rapidly, and stay ahead of evolving threats. In a world where technological threats move at unprecedented speed, CHAOS Industries delivers advanced sensing and detection solutions that give the ultimate advantage: time.

CHAOS Industries was founded in 2022 and has raised $1B in total funding from leading investors including 8VC, Accel, and NEA. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and London. For more information, please visit www.chaosinc.com.

 

Role Overview

CHAOS is seeking a Lead Software Test Engineer to build and lead our automated system testing capability. This is a foundational role - an opportunity to define strategy and hands-on implement system & software testing across CHAOS’s cutting-edge sensing systems.

You will collaborate closely with systems engineering and software engineering teams to create a robust automated test & validation pipeline that’s integrated into our CI/CD and release process. You’ll build tools, implement automated system tests, and develop rich reporting & analytics to ensure CHAOS's products meet the critical needs and requirements of our customers.

The ideal candidate is a problem solver and innovator, fluent in both software quality and AI-assisted test & development, who will shape how CHAOS validates the next generation of defense technologies.

 

 

Responsibilities

  • Establish and lead the automated software testing group within CHAOS, working with a distributed set of teams across multiple products.
  • Fully integrate Hardware-in-the-loop automated testing for production HW across multiple products and variants
  • Collaborate with systems and software engineers to validate system-level and mission-level functionality
  • Design, develop, and maintain end-to-end test frameworks for SW & FW Development (e.g. Python, CUDA, Typescript, and FPGA code)
  • Fully integrate into CI/CD pipelines (Bitbucket, Jenkins, Azure) for continuous test execution and analysis
  • Support development and V&V for system test automation
  • Build automated reporting and coverage dashboards, including AI-driven summarization of test incidents and anomalies
  • Leverage AI to build and apply a suite of radar domain-specific automated test and validation capabilities
  • Develop AI-native workflows using code copilots, LLMs, and reasoning models for intelligent automated system test
  • Mentor junior engineers as the test organization scales
  • Work on-site at our office in Hawthorne, CA

Minimum Requirements

  • 5+ years of experience in software QA, automated testing, or related software engineering roles
  • Strong experience with Python and modern automated testing frameworks (pytest, robot framework, Playwright, or similar)
  • Experience integrating tests into CI/CD environments and measuring code coverage
  • Familiarity with Dockerized or cloud-deployed software (Azure experience preferred)
  • Experience with AI-native development tools applied to automated test (GitHub Copilot, OpenAI APIs, Claude Code, or similar).
  • Experience building automated test frameworks for data pipelines, Hardware-in-the-loop system testing, and/or or real-time systems
  • Demonstrated ability to work cross-functionally with systems and software teams

 

Preferred Requirements

  • Familiarity with defense-related sensing domains such as radar, RF/IQ data processing, and/or sensor fusion
  • Understanding of performance testing, fault injection, and simulation-based testing (HIL/SIL)
  • Proficiency with Git and agile development practices
  • Experience designing workflows for large-scale regression, fuzz, or stress testing

 

Why CHAOS?

  • Health Benefits: Medical, dental, and vision benefits 100% paid for by the company
  • Additional benefits: 401k (+ 50% company match up to 6% of pay), FSA, HSA, life insurance, and more
  • Our Perks: Free daily lunch, ‘No meeting Fridays’, unlimited PTO, casual dress code
  • Compensation Components: Competitive base salaries, generous pre-IPO stock option grants, relocation assistance, and (coming soon!) annual bonuses
  • Team Growth: 200 employees and counting across 5 global offices
Salary Range: $145,000 - $250,000

The stated compensation range reflects only the targeted base compensation range and excludes additional earnings such as bonus, equity, and benefits. If your compensation requirements fall outside of the range, we still encourage you to apply. The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations.

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