Testing Engineer / Technician (Contract-to-Hire)

Cavalla | San Francisco Bay Area | On-site

About Cavalla

Cavalla is reimagining warehouse automation. Our autonomous forklifts automate repetitive tasks and can be reconfigured with the click of a button to support the most demanding logistics operations. Learn more at Cavalla.ai.

We're backed by venture funds including Emerson Capital, Founder Inc, and the Thiel Foundation, plus angels from leadership at Google, Microsoft, and more. Our core team comes from CMU, MIT, ETH Zurich, EPFL, IIT Madras, NASA JPL, and Caterpillar, and includes a Thiel Fellow.

The Role

We're looking for a hands-on Testing Engineer / Technician to keep our robots and test operations moving. You'll be the person who makes things work on the ground: wiring up sensors, fixing hardware, printing a part, spinning up compute, and running tests that tell us what's working and what isn't. Every day brings new problems, and we need someone who can squash them fast.

This is a contract-to-hire role, with a path to full-time for the right person.

What You'll Do

• Wire, mount, and integrate sensors, electronics, and hardware on our autonomous forklifts
• Design and 3D print brackets, mounts, and fixtures in CAD
• Set up and manage compute, test equipment, and shared resources
• Plan, run, and facilitate tests with the engineering team
• Record test results, failures, and key observations clearly so the team can act on them
• Use agentic and AI tools to build quick solutions or replicate existing solutions
• Troubleshoot hardware, software, and electrical issues as they come up

What We're Looking For

• Ground-level understanding of hardware, software, and electronics
• Comfortable with soldering, crimping, wiring harnesses, and basic electrical debugging
• Experience with 3D printing and CAD (Fusion 360, SolidWorks, Onshape, or similar)
• Familiar with, or eager to use, agentic AI tools to move faster
• Organized and disciplined about documenting what you test and what you find
• Fast, hardworking, and hungry to learn

Nice to Have

• Experience with robotics, drones, vehicles, or other hardware projects
• Familiarity with ROS, Jetson, or embedded systems
• Hackathon, maker, or competition robotics background

Why Join

You'll work directly with a small, sharp founding team on real robots in real warehouses. You'll learn more in a few months here than in years elsewhere, and if you move fast and own your work, there's a clear path to a full-time role.