Firmware Quality Engineer (SDET)

Title: Firmware Quality Engineer (SDET) 

Location: Beaverton, OR

Duration: months contract

NIKE, Inc. does more than outfit the world's best athletes. It is a place to explore potential, obliterate boundaries and push out the edges of what can be. The company looks for people who can grow, think, dream and create. Its culture thrives by embracing diversity and rewarding imagination. The brand seeks achievers, leaders and visionaries. At Nike, it’s about each person bringing skills and passion to a challenging and constantly evolving game.

WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR

We're seeking a Firmware Quality Engineer (SDET) to build the quality infrastructure behind a unique hardware product’s firmware, controls, and connected software ecosystem. This role focuses on creating the automated systems, tooling, and validation frameworks that help engineering teams move quickly while maintaining a high bar for reliability, performance, and release readiness.

The ideal candidate is a builder first. You enjoy writing code, automating repetitive work, and creating scalable test systems that increase confidence across the development lifecycle. You're equally comfortable debugging embedded systems, investigating complex failures, building hardware-in-the-loop infrastructure, and partnering with engineers to improve quality at the source.

You thrive in ambiguity and are energized by creating processes, tools, and workflows where none yet exist. You know that quality is not something that happens at the end of development. It's something that is engineered into every stage of the product lifecycle.

WHAT YOU WILL WORK ON

• Build and maintain automated validation frameworks for firmware, controls, and connected services
• Develop test infrastructure, tooling, and pipelines that improve release confidence and engineering velocity
• Design and implement Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) and system-level automated test environments
• Create automated regression suites for embedded systems and hardware-software interactions
• Develop internal tools that improve testing efficiency, diagnostics, observability, and engineering productivity
• Investigate complex system failures using logs, telemetry, source code, and hardware debugging techniques
• Perform root cause analysis and work cross-functionally to drive issues through resolution
• Partner with firmware and controls engineers to improve testability, reliability, and quality throughout development
• Define release readiness criteria, quality gates, and validation processes that support frequent firmware releases
• Create clear validation documentation, test plans, quality metrics, and reporting mechanisms
• Establish scalable quality processes capable of supporting future product generations
• Leverage AI tools to accelerate automation, debugging, analysis, and engineering workflows

WHO YOU WILL WORK WITH

You'll collaborate closely with firmware, controls, software, hardware, QA, product, and program teams responsible for developing the product. You'll partner with engineers across embedded systems, electrical engineering, mobile applications, and cloud services to help establish a culture where quality is built into the product from the start.

You'll also work with external development partners and testing resources to ensure consistent validation approaches across the broader product ecosystem.

WHAT YOU BRING

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent combination of education, experience, or training
• 5+ years of experience as an SDET, firmware quality engineer, embedded software engineer, or related role
• Strong programming skills in Python and experience developing production-quality automation tooling
• Experience building automated test frameworks, CI/CD pipelines, and validation infrastructure
• Experience validating embedded systems, robotics, mechatronics products, wearables, or connected devices
• Strong understanding of firmware development workflows, source control, code reviews, CI systems, and release processes
• Experience investigating complex system behavior through logs, telemetry, debugging tools, and root cause analysis
• Experience creating test strategies, validation plans, and release qualification processes
• Exceptional written communication and documentation skills
• Builder mindset with ability to create new tools and processes in ambiguous environments
• Highly self-motivated, action-oriented, and comfortable operating in startup-style product development environments
• Comfortable working across firmware, controls, hardware, backend, and QA disciplines

Preferred Experience

• Robotics, exoskeletons, autonomous systems, industrial automation, or mechatronics
• Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) testing environments
• Sensor fusion, controls systems, motion systems, or real-time software
• BLE communication, mobile-device interactions, and OTA firmware updates
• Experience with GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or similar CI/CD platforms
• MATLAB, CAN tools, embedded diagnostics, or hardware debugging tools
• Startup, RCD, incubation, or 0→1 product development environments
• Experience using modern AI-enabled engineering workflows and tools