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

CHAOS Inc. is a global technology company delivering next-generation capabilities to the defense and critical industrial sectors. Founded in 2022 by a seasoned leadership team, CHAOS has quickly become the place where world-class multi-disciplinary engineers come to build mission-critical technologies. CHAOS has a mission-focused culture, dedicated to solving the toughest technical challenges. Its unique agile engineering approach enables rapid prototyping, while deep partnerships with defense and industry ensure real-world solutions.

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: Your medical, dental and vision benefits will be 100% paid for by the company


• Additional benefits : life, FSA, HSA, 401k (+ Company match), 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 + (coming soon!) annual bonuses


• Company Size: 150 employees and counting!


• More About Us: We're building the next generation of aerospace, defense and critical industry technologies with a seasoned team of mission-focused individuals. We were founded in June 2022 and our goal is to become the platform where world-class engineers come to solve critical, real-world problems. We use agile engineering approaches which enable rapid prototyping, deep partnerships with the defense industry ensuring real-world application, and our newly-invented Coherence platform (through which we’ve made a fundamental breakthrough) improves sensor performance and decision-making in real-time. As of April 2025 we have raised $490M (including a $275M Series C at a $2B valuation) from some of the most prominent VC funds and investors including Accel, NEA, 8VC, and Valar. With a managing team that includes Epirus’ founding members (responsible for building a $1.5B company from scratch) + key drivers from Palantir (instrumental in Palantir’s growth to $1B in revenue), we are well-positioned to become one of the fastest growing companies to date!

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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