Test Engineer
Active Surfaces · Woburn, MA ·
- Work mode
- Onsite
- Seniority
- C level
- Employment
- Full time
- Category
- QA
- Experience
- 2+ years
Active Surfaces · Woburn, MA ·
At Active Surfaces, our mission is bold: to unlock clean energy in places traditional solar can't reach. Our technology, born from nearly a decade of materials science research at MIT, enables ultra-lightweight, flexible solar modules that install on rooftops, walls, and industrial surfaces once considered off-limits. With our platform, the built environment itself becomes a source of clean power.
Since our founding, we've rapidly emerged as one of the most exciting startups in climate tech, merging breakthrough science with advanced manufacturing. Backed by leading global investors and strategic partners — including J-POWER, Sabancı, and Lendlease — and having already deployed a paid pilot with a Fortune 500 partner, we're scaling quickly to support a growing pipeline of deployments and commercial opportunities through 2028.
We're expanding our team to support this next phase of rapid growth. These key hires will join a world-class group with deep expertise in semiconductor and perovskite research, roll-to-roll manufacturing, and commercial leadership across the energy sector.
Let's be direct about what this is. We're a small team taking on a genuinely hard problem—and we hire accordingly. This is a high-intensity, early-stage environment where the pace is fast and the work you do is load-bearing: it directly determines whether we scale or we fail. We look for people who hold themselves to an exceptionally high bar, want deep ownership, and are energized rather than daunted by the ambiguity of tough problems. The work is demanding; the upside—in impact, in career growth, and in equity—is meant to match it. Few people get to materially change whether clean energy reaches places solar never could. If that's the room you want to be in, you'll be surrounded by people who feel the same.
How we work:
If you hold yourself to that bar and want to shape the future of solar alongside us, we want to meet you.
As a Test Engineer, you sit at the intersection of product and engineering — and at the intersection of testing and reliability. You own how we measure whether our solar devices work, how long they last, and whether they meet spec. Your work spans lab-scale characterization of solar cells and the reliability and qualification of large-area products. Reporting to the Founder & Chief Technology Officer (CTO), you build the test and reliability infrastructure that tells the rest of the company the truth about our products. The data you generate directly drives design decisions.
Above all else, we value someone who is a quick, enthusiastic learner, creative problem solver and willing to push the bounds of what would normally be considered 'standard'. As our company quickly grows its technical capabilities, we are looking for a team member who can grow and scale with us!
This role is eligible for visa sponsorship and relocation. This job will be located full-time on site in Woburn, MA at our Headquarters and Manufacturing Development site.
Design and build test fixtures, instrumentation setups, and data acquisition systems that capture high-quality, repeatable data — from lab-scale cells to large-area modules.
Plan and execute test and characterization campaigns across solar cells and large-area products, including instrumentation selection and acceptance criteria.
Characterize devices using JV/I-V, EQE/IPCE, electroluminescence (EL) imaging, and flash/LIV testing; correlate lab-scale results with large-area product performance.
Own reliability and qualification testing — accelerated lifetime, damp heat, thermal cycling, UV and light-soak exposure — driving toward relevant PV module standards (e.g., IEC 61215 / 61730).
Develop and maintain test protocols, procedures, and reports; keep rigorous records of configurations, calibrations, and results.
Automate data acquisition and repetitive test sequences (LabVIEW, Python, or similar) to scale throughput and consistency.
Perform failure analysis and root-cause investigations; feed findings back to the engineering and manufacturing teams.
Analyze and interpret data to guide decision-making across product and engineering.
Influence hardware design for testability — flag instrumentation access and design choices that make products easier to qualify, and push back on unnecessary complexity in test setups.
Enforce and continuously improve lab safety practices for electrical, high-voltage, and environmental-chamber work.
Be data-driven and experimentally rigorous — rely on evidence, not speculation — and hold peers to the same.
All full-time employees are eligible for an annual performance bonus of up to 50% of base salary, assessed and dispersed every six months. The structure is intentionally non-linear — top performers earn disproportionately more, and we want it that way. This isn't stack-ranked: if everyone is exceptional, everyone earns at the top. Your individual contribution is the primary driver, with additional bonuses tied to both department and company outcomes. If you're a top performer, this is where we want that to pay off. Consistent high performance also influences base salary increases, with similar non-linear structures — so the compounding effect over time is significant, and can result in very quick salary and professional growth.
Base salary offers are given based on the experience level of the candidate but applicants should expect base salary levels in-line with their experience level for the Boston area. We are willing to hire multiple exceptional candidates with this posting.
15 days vacation (20 once seniority is reached). Unlimited sick leave
Commute reimbursement (75%)
Wellness program ($50/month)
Cell Phone Reimbursement ($50/month)
401K Matching (up to 5%)
Equity + re-ups based on performance