An Arcs Test Engineer’s (TE) primary responsibilities are to plan and execute arc heater testing and be the bridge that spans between test analysts (TAs), test managers (TMs), the engineering technicians (ETs), the capability manager (CM), and the customer. The most important skills required for this job include sound engineering judgement, organization and attention to detail, and clear, consistent communication to the test team and customer.
Traditional TE tasks and responsibilities include:
Phase 1 - Planning
- Participate in test inquiry discussions with customer.
- Coordinate meetings with the test team to determine test requirements.
- Help develop cost estimates.
Phase 2 – Test Design
- Coordinate internal test planning meetings with test team.
- Participate in safety and security planning as required.
- Coordinate with customer and test team to define test objectives and test matrix.
- Work with test team to assess match between test objectives and facility capabilities.
- Disseminate instrumentation requirements to test team.
- Define deliverables and test schedule.
- Develop test plan and contribute to data analysis plan.
- Provide inputs to Technical and Safety Review Boards and participate in reviews.
Phase 3 – Test Execution
- Provide inputs to the Test Readiness Review slide deck and participate in the review.
- Verify that Go/No-Go criteria are in place to initiate test.
- Communicate all test requirements and Go/No-Go criteria to test team and customer.
- Direct testing.
Phase 4 – Analysis and reporting
- Coordinate delivery of preliminary data package to customer.
- Coordinate with TA to perform data analysis.
- Contribute to technical report development.
Duties will include, but are not limited to:
- Provide technical support to the Space & Missiles Test Branch High Temperature Laboratory (HTL, aka Arcs) in developmental test and evaluation (T&E) activities for DoD weapon systems.
- Work as part of a multi-disciplinary government and contractor team to plan, test, analyze, and report ground test results supporting systems under development or in deployment.
- Serve as a test engineer in performing and/or coordinating technical test execution, working with team test managers, test analysts, test operations engineers, and affiliated team members.
- Maintain cognizance of all assigned engineering activities.
- Support and/or lead periodic reviews for test planning and execution including test planning working groups, technical review boards and test readiness reviews.
- Provide technical support and advocate integrated approaches of engineering efforts and support of test activities for which existing guidelines may not be available or applicable.
- Other duties as assigned.