Staff Test Platforms Mechanical Engineer

What if the work you did every day could impact the lives of people you know? Or all of humanity?

At Illumina, we are expanding access to genomic technology to realize health equity for billions of people around the world. Our efforts enable life-changing discoveries that are transforming human health through the early detection and diagnosis of diseases and new treatment options for patients.

Working at Illumina means being part of something bigger than yourself. Every person, in every role, has the opportunity to make a difference. Surrounded by extraordinary people, inspiring leaders, and world changing projects, you will do more and become more than you ever thought possible.

The Staff Systems Test Engineer will be responsible for mechanical test system design and technical leadership to cross functional teams to develop industry-leading DNA sequencing instruments for clinical applications in an exciting, fast-paced environment.  The foundation of all activities for this role is a wide, solid grasp of multiple areas of engineering and physics and the ability to climb new learning curves quickly.  Primary responsibilities include contributing to system & sub-system architecture designs, and developing test strategies, plans and protocols for critical parameter, reliability, and verification testing. The candidate should possess strong mechanical design, organizational and communication skills to facilitate successful product development across hardware, consumables, firmware, software, and chemistry teams. 

Job Activities:

• Design and develop mechanical test systems to identify and quantify system sensitivities and failure processes over operational environments.
• Design and execute system test plan for Robustness (includes shipping, vibration, thermal/humidity corner cases, Altitude)
• Leverage Experimental Design for efficient coverage of complex parameter spaces and physics of failure analysis in the execution of experiments.
• Build the foundation for robust mechanical system architectures.  Create and maintain documents, models, & diagrams describing functional workflows and use cases.  Examples include hardware timing diagrams, fault trees, and assembly process workflows.
• Develop system models that guide test system design.  These can include system tolerance budgets, performance, degradation, and failure models. 
• Collaborate closely with other engineers and vendors.
• Support architecture definition by partnering across sub-system design teams to align overlapping design requirements /constraints and drive teams in developing concepts, evaluating risks, and efficiently concluding on a design path.
• Support design teams in test system development to enable complex root-cause and failure analysis activities. This includes optical, mechanical, electrical, fluidic, or thermal components and modules, as well as system-level interactions.
• Support analysis, simulation and test efforts informing including hands on contributions to test system and experiment execution
   

Required Skills & Experience:

• B.S, M.S with 8+ years of experience or Ph.D. + 3 years of experience in Mechanical Engineering or similar
• 8+ years of work experience as a Systems Test Engineer is a Plus
• Direct Experience in instrumentation design and development
• Test system development, statistical analysis fundamentals and record of producing results to drive decisions. 
• Experience designing mechanical test fixtures for interrogating performance of a complex mechanical system, including dynamics and vibration.
• Understands basic design, alignment, and assembly practices of mechanical systems.
• Proficient in CAD, preferably SolidWorks
• Familiarity with metrology for analyzing mechanical system performance.
• Experience developing multi-level tolerance stacks.
• Experience building BOMs and assembly work instructions.
• Demonstrated track record of rapidly climbing steep learning curves.  Enthusiasm for tackling tough problems on aggressive schedules.
• Strong teamwork, communication, and presentation skills (ability to distill complex technical information into technical recommendations)
• Experience with definition, setup, characterization and testing of complex systems, including design of experiments, reliability life tests, and root cause analysis.
• Experience and fluency in scientific computing and simulation, such as MATLAB, Python or JMP

Preferred Skills & Experience:

• Experience and / or curriculum in Mechanical Systems Engineering
• Technically proficient in disciplines including opto-mech and precision motion.
• Experience with Monte Carlo simulation.
• Experience with a wide range of manufacturing technologies including high prec