Job Description - Test Plan and Test Tool Developer

This job involves participation in the formal testing and QA of a industrial wireless protocol stack and supporting software for a new wireless industrial standard. The software resides in numerous different physical devices ranging from deeply embedded in a small hardware module to various management components residing on Linux and/or Windows platforms.

The protocols and procedures to be tested are either documented by the published standard or in our own internal documentation.

This job involves participation in the whole testing spectrum from creating test specifications, plans, procedures, designing and developing software tools, and the subsequent results analysis. It also involves working with the development team to validate testing procedures and results obtained.

Most of the testing will be software based (tools, scripts, etc.) but some hardware assisted testing might be needed; experience using a variety of hardware testing aids such as network sniffers, scopes, probes, and similar devices would be helpful but not required.

While some companies consider "testing" to be something performed by people who don't have what it takes to be "developers"; that's not how we think here at STG.  You need to smart to create something and often times even smarter to test it.  This is a serious develop-oriented opportunity and not some button-pushing, script-jockey gig.

• Testing of embedded or other engineering-related software is a must - this isn't testing web sites or Windows GUI applications but deep down networking equipment running complicated protocols
• Ability to create a Test Specification derived primarily from internal requirements documents and published protocol standard documents
• Gap analysis between 3rd party test suites/tools and published standards
• Test Plan creation (what, how, success criteria, etc.)
• Test Tool development including:

   

  • Creating test applications where applicable
  • Test scripts (typically driving the afore mentioned test applications)
  • Test Automation - where possible, being able to automate test tools and procedures to perform regular regression testing as well as more reliable overall testing is a goal.
  • These tools could be developed using a variety of variety of languages, tools, etc. - we would expect the person with these responsibilities to be able to build many of their own testing tools as part of the job.
  • Support from the development team would be available but we would hope the right person would have some of this experience under their belt.  Typical tool languages might include Python, Perl, shell scripts, C/C++ (to test APIs and programmatic interfaces), and others (preference for open source and self developed tools is preferred since portions of the testing tools developed will pass through to customers and licensees of the tested software).
• Test results interpretation and validation and working with the development team to resolve issues as appropriate.
• Ideally, you should have a testing/QA background with an appropriate level of test development experience in the areas of creating, validating, and using situation-specific test tools.

• Ability to work with hardware devices:
• Reading a schematic
• Experience using typical meters, oscilloscope or other hardware device to test software
• The ability to do some hardware hacking to help support testing; if you had to use a soldering iron or other tool to make some hardware change, would you hurt yourself?  Or worse, would you hurt me?
• Some non-trivial development experience - the more you can develop as far as testing tools, procedures, and capabilities, the better.
• Ability to work on a variety of systems - this project has an embedded focus for some parts but others are designed to run on systems like Linux or Windows; being able to deal with that is a benefit

• Good personal skills

• The ideal person must be self motivated and have a disciplined approach to software testing and development.

• Authorized to work in the United States

Education

BS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering or related fields.