Automated Testing Module Lead

ABOUT US Harmattan AI is a next-generation defense prime building autonomous and scalable defense systems. Following the close of a $200M Series B, valuing the company at $1.4 billion, we are expanding our teams and capabilities to deliver mission-critical systems to allied forces. Our work is guided by clear values: building technologies with real-world impact, pursuing excellence in everything we do, setting ambitious goals, and taking on the hardest technical challenges. We operate in a demanding environment where rigor, ownership, and execution are expected. About the Role As Automated Testing Module Lead, you take ownership of how Harmattan validates its autonomy and flight-software stack. Today, our software is validated mostly against real hardware, a process that consumes airframes, range time, and crew while sampling only a handful of nominal trajectories. The cases we actually build for, such as degraded GNSS, sensor dropout, electronic warfare, and multi-agent situations, are rarely reached economically that way. Your mission is to establish the scenario library, execution strategy, and interface bricks to turn our existing simulation platform into a fast, reliable, and continuous validation engine. This is a senior, hands-on technical leadership role. You inherit an active team of four engineers across Paris and Lausanne, with a target of around eight by mid-2027. Beyond leading the team, you become the technical authority on our scenario-based testing: defining what runs across SITL, HITL, and CI, holding critical technical boundaries with adjacent teams, and bridging the gap between simulation fidelity and real flight data. What You Will Do - Team Leadership & Strategy: Take over, structure, and give a clear mandate to our existing team of four engineers, while building the case and the roadmap to scale the module to around eight by mid-2027. Scenario & Simulation Engineering: Drive the design of a versioned scenario library covering nominal, edge, off-nominal, and contested flight conditions, expanding into Monte Carlo and multi-agent testing, and bring a team with no prior simulation experience up that curve. - Execution Strategy & Gating: Establish what tests run across SITL, HITL, and CI, defining gating policies, telemetry capture, deterministic replay, and coverage analytics. - Interface & Boundary Ownership: Negotiate, then maintain, strong, written technical boundaries with Tooling (who provide the simulation platform) and co-ownership splits with Validation (who define acceptance criteria and own final sign-off). - Sim-to-Real Correlation: Correlate simulation models against real flight data to continuously measure and close the sim-to-real gap, ensuring green test gates reflect real-world flight readiness. What We Are Looking For - Experience: 8+ years in automated testing, simulation-based validation, or test engineering for complex physical / hardware-in-the-loop systems (e.g., Autonomous Driving, Aerospace, Defense, Robotics). Scenario & Simulation Depth: Hands-on experience designing scenario-based test suites on a simulation platform and defining coverage that genuinely catches defects. This is the capability our current team lacks, and therefore the most valuable thing you can bring. - Technical Depth: Hands-on proficiency in Python, C++, Linux, Docker, and CI environments, with deep domain expertise in scenario design, SITL/HITL execution, and simulation tools. - Leadership & Ownership: Proven ability to step into an existing engineering team, establish immediate clarity, and manage distributed engineers (Paris and Lausanne) effectively**, including engineers more senior than you in years of experience**. - Validation Mindset: A rigorous, analytical approach to noisy physical metrics, false positives, and flaky test environments, instinctively questioning what a passing test proves. - Cross-Functional Diplomacy: Track record of defining and holding clear interfaces with platform providers and internal customer teams. Bonus: Background in defense/aerospace flight software, control systems, or experience closing sim-to-real fidelity gaps. - Location & Travel: Based in Paris or Lausanne, with travel between sites. Working- level English. What We Offer - Immediate Impact: Take over an established mandate with an existing team and pre-built simulation platform, delivering test capability in weeks rather than building from scratch. - High System Scope: Own the entire scenario library and execution strategy across our autonomy stack. Direct Mission Impact: Build test pipelines that directly accelerate the deployment of resilient autonomous systems in real-world defense environments. Cross-Functional Ownership: Work closely with Tooling, Validation, GNC, Perception, and Embedded SW teams to shape the future of flight-software reliability. We look forward to hearing how you can help shape the future of autonomous defense systems at Harmattan AI.