Senior Hardware Test Engineer, PCBA

Planet Labs
Berlin, GermanyPosted 3 March 2026

Job Description

<div class="content-intro"><p><strong>Welcome to Planet. We believe in using space to help life on Earth.</strong></p> <p>Planet designs, builds, and operates the largest constellation of imaging satellites in history. This constellation delivers an unprecedented dataset of empirical information via a revolutionary cloud-based platform to authoritative figures in commercial, environmental, and humanitarian sectors. We are both a space company and data company all rolled into one.</p> <p>Customers and users across the globe use Planet's data to develop new technologies, drive revenue, power research, and solve our world’s toughest obstacles.</p> <p>As we control every component of hardware design, manufacturing, data processing, and software engineering, our office is a truly inspiring mix of experts from a variety of domains.</p> <p>We have a people-centric approach toward culture and community and we strive to iterate in a way that puts our team members first and prepares our company for growth. Join Planet and be a part of our mission to change the way people see the world.</p> <p>Planet is a global company with employees working remotely world wide and joining us from offices in San Francisco, Washington DC, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, and The Netherlands.</p></div><p><strong>About the Role: </strong></p> <p>The Manufacturing Test Engineering Team is responsible for creating and maintaining the tests and infrastructure for our satellite manufacturing operations. The hardware test engineers on our team tackle projects large and small to design and build software and hardware to automate functional integration testing, instrument calibration, and qualification testing for both production and design validation. As a member of the Manufacturing Test Engineering team, you will collaborate with design engineers to develop board-level tests and be responsible for designing and developing the test fixtures, test hardware, and test software. This will involve working with a broad variety of disciplines, including our top-notch design, qualification, and manufacturing teams.</p> <p>This is a full-time, in-office position based in our Berlin Manufacturing Center 5 days a week.</p> <p><strong>Impact You’ll Own:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Develop test plans in collaboration with design engineers.</li> <li>Drive the strategy and approach to PCBA test for manufacturing.</li> <li>Design, validate, and deploy bed-of-nails and boundary scan test fixtures both in-house and at supplier facilities.</li> <li>Design PCBA’s for testing– adapters, interface, and breakout boards.</li> <li>Develop the automation and test scripts to functionally test the hardware through various stages of manufacturing.</li> <li>Continuous improvement of test software and hardware to ensure high reliability and scalability of test systems.</li> <li>Troubleshoot failures and non-conformances through all stages of test, drive root cause analysis, and recommend corrective actions.</li> </ul> <p><strong>What You Bring:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or similar.</li> <li>6+ years of experience in PCBA testing or manufacturing electrical test development.</li> <li>Experience with JTAG/boundary scan and bed-of-nail testers.</li> <li>Experience in design and layout of PCBA’s for adapting or interfacing with test hardware.</li> <li>Ability to read and interpret PCBA schematics and use them to design tests and troubleshoot hardware.</li> <li>Experience creating system diagrams as well as detailed wiring diagrams.</li> <li>Experience troubleshooting hardware/software issues and identifying root causes.</li> <li>Familiarity with measurement hardware and test equipment such as DMMs, oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, analog and digital I/O, data acquisition systems, switch matrices, relay banks, and signal conditioning.</li> <li>Experience programming in Python, especially functional tests of hardware.</li> <li>Comfortable using Linux.</li> <li>Experienc ... (truncated, view full listing at source)