Battery Test Engineer

Responsibilities

• Own test planning and hands-on execution for lithium-ion cells and aircraft battery packs.

• Plan and execute electrical and thermal performance characterization of cell candidates and prototype packs, including capacity, DCIR, power capability, mission-profile cycling, and thermal response across temperature.

• Operate high-power battery cyclers, cell cyclers, and environmental chambers, and maintain test profiles, data pipelines, and test-article configuration records.

• Deliver correlation-ready datasets to the simulation team and support model-versus-test comparison.

• Design, build, and execute thermal-runaway initiation, propagation, containment, venting, and mitigation tests, including fabrication of test articles, trigger methods, fixtures, and instrumentation appropriate to test objectives.

• Develop environmental and durability tests covering temperature, thermal cycling, altitude or low-pressure exposure, humidity, vibration, mechanical shock, and transportation conditions as applicable.

• Define test objectives, hazards, instrumentation needs, data-acquisition architecture, trigger logic, sampling rates, acceptance criteria, and stop conditions.

• Prepare test articles, fixtures, chambers, power equipment, cooling systems, sensors, high-speed video, thermal imaging, and data-acquisition systems.

• Lead test readiness reviews, job-hazard analyses, emergency planning, exclusion-zone definition, and coordination with EHS, facilities, fire-safety, and external laboratories.

• Execute testing safely, monitor tests in real time, respond to anomalies, and protect personnel, facilities, test assets, and data integrity.

• Analyze temperature, voltage, current, pressure, gas, flame, ejecta, and propagation behavior, as applicable to the test objective and facility capability.

• Author clear test plans, procedures, reports, nonconformance records, root-cause assessments, and design recommendations.

• Support model correlation and work with design engineers to improve containment, cooling, sensing, venting, and protection strategies.

• Manage external test laboratories, including statement-of-work development, setup reviews, witnessing, data acceptance, and issue resolution.

• Maintain calibrated instrumentation, safe lab practices, test configuration control, data traceability, and lessons learned.

• Support transportation and environmental compliance test programs, including UN 38.3 activities, when applicable to the product and program phase.

Qualifications 

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Aerospace, Electrical, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, or a related technical field.

• Three or more years of hands-on battery, environmental, abuse, reliability, or aerospace hardware testing experience.

• Experience designing instrumented tests and selecting thermocouples, voltage and current measurement, pressure sensing, thermal imaging, and data-acquisition hardware.

• Working knowledge of lithium-ion battery hazards, high-voltage safety, stored-energy hazards, fire risk, and safe test operations.

• Experience developing test fixtures, procedures, hazard controls, and technical reports.

• Ability to troubleshoot hardware, instrumentation, wiring, communications, and data-quality issues in the laboratory.

• Ability to work on-site and safely support physically hands-on test setup and execution.

Preferred Qualifications 

• Experience conducting or witnessing battery thermal-runaway, propagation, overcharge, external heating, short-circuit, crush, or penetration testing.

• Experience with environmental chambers, vibration systems, thermal cycling, altitude chambers, shock testing, and high-power battery pack cyclers (e.g., Chroma, etc.) or cell cyclers (e.g., Biologic, Arbin).

• Experience with electric aircraft, EV, UAV, aerospace, defense, or other safety-critical energy systems.