What are the responsibilities and job description for the Embedded Systems Validation Engineer position at CoreKinect?
Location: Chandler, Arizona
Employment Type: Full-Time
Citizenship Requirement: U.S. Citizen Required
ABOUT COREKINECT
CoreKinect is an innovative technology company specializing in the design, development, and manufacturing of connected IoT solutions.
Our team works across the full product lifecycle; from hardware and firmware development through validation, manufacturing, deployment, and ongoing support. At CoreKinect, reliability is non-negotiable, and validation plays a critical role in ensuring our products perform as intended before they reach our customers.
JOB DESCRIPTION
At CoreKinect we develop connected IoT devices where reliability is non-negotiable. As a Validation Engineer, you'll verify firmware before it reaches customers by designing tests plans, building automated validation tools, and investigating failures across embedded systems.
This role is hands-on. You will work directly with embedded firmware, test fixtures, bench instruments, and automated test infrastructure. If you prefer reports over lab-time, this is probably not the right fit.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
- Author and execute test cases against firmware validation plans, tracing coverage back to requirements
- Write test scripts and tooling to automate repetitive validation steps
- File defects with enough detail that firmware and hardware engineers can reproduce them without asking follow-up questions
- Maintain fixture and bench setups for RF and power validation
- Review test results, identify failure patterns, and escalate with data
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
- BS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, or equivalent hands-on experience
- 3 years validating embedded hardware or firmware, ideally in a regulated or life-safety context
- Comfortable using oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and digital multimeters for hardware debugging
- Ability to read schematics and correlate measurements with expected hardware behavior
- Familiarity with common embedded communication buses: UART, SPI, I2C, USB
- Experience writing automation scripts in C#, Python or a similar language
- Comfortable working in a Linux environment from the command line
- Strong troubleshooting skills and the curiosity to investigate problems through to root cause
- Able to communicate technical findings clearly to engineers across disciplines
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Experience validating cellular modems
- GPS/GNSS validation
- LoRa or LoRaWAN protocol validation
- Battery and battery charging validation
- Experience with embedded RTOS environments
- JTAG/SWD debug
WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE
- Enjoy figuring out why something failed, not just that it failed.
- Like moving between schematics, firmware logs, test code, and bench equipment.
- Prefer building better automation over repeating manual tests.
- Take satisfaction in preventing customer issues before products ship.
- Want your work to have a visible impact on the quality of real hardware.
BENEFITS
- A small, technical team where your work is visible and your opinion carries weight
- Exposure to the full hardware development cycle, from first silicon to manufacturing handoff
- Competitive compensation commensurate with experience
- Health, dental, and vision benefits