Role overview

Halter is seeking a Senior Hardware Test Engineer to lead the test automation and product quality function for its livestock management hardware. The company develops virtual fencing collar devices deployed at scale across New Zealand, Australia, and the United States in demanding farm environments. You will be a technical cornerstone responsible for designing and executing automated tests that provide the evidence driving confident product decisions.

Key responsibilities

Design and execute comprehensive test automation strategies and infrastructure, likely using Python or Teststand, across hundreds of device samples.
Develop and run environmental, reliability, verification and validation tests including HALT, UV exposure, tumble, impact, thermal cycling, and ingress testing on electromechanical subsystems and full product assemblies.
Own the complete test lifecycle from interpreting product requirements and writing test plans through execution, data analysis, and delivering clear pass/fail evidence linked to requirements.
Design, build, and maintain bespoke test rigs, fixtures, and automation infrastructure that improves testing speed, repeatability, and reproducibility while reducing manual effort.
Manage and integrate environmental chambers, data acquisition systems, RF systems, and other equipment into the automation infrastructure with proper calibration and maintenance standards.
Ensure all test data is trustworthy, traceable, and actionable, maintaining strong governance practices including calibration records, equipment versioning, code versioning, and full requirement traceability.
Collaborate with Reliability Engineering, Hardware Design, Firmware, and Production teams to embed quality testing approaches early in the development cycle and translate reliability requirements into efficient, scaleable test plans.

Requirements

Significant hands-on experience in hardware test engineering or validation within high-reliability environments such as IoT, ruggedised consumer electronics, automotive, aerospace, industrial, or robotics.
Proven expertise in designing and executing environmental and reliability tests with solid understanding of the underlying science.
Strong proficiency in test automation frameworks and programming languages relevant to hardware testing.
Demonstrated ability to build and maintain complex test infrastructure and work with specialized equipment.
Experience producing traceable, decision-grade data and presenting technical findings to cross-functional stakeholders.

What makes this role worth considering

You’ll join a high-performance team working on a mission that matters, solving genuinely challenging problems in a fast-growing business scaling internationally. This is a rare opportunity to build career-accelerating experience in product reliability at scale, where your test automation and data will directly enable the company to deploy over one million devices with confidence in the field.