Director of Test Engineering

At Aircapture we're creating technology to solve what we believe to be our lifetime's most pressing challenge: the climate crisis. We supply commercial and industrial customers with clean CO captured from our atmosphere to radically improve the environment, our economy, and our lives. We value building a team of people who represent diverse backgrounds-be it through education, gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation-to reach our goals. Thank you for considering us.

You will lead the test and validation function that sits at the heart of Aircapture's path from R&D to commercial technology. Owning system-level performance testing, you will define how we measure and understand our Direct Air Capture (DAC) systems, building a world-class quality and reliability capability. Performance understanding, repeatability, and reliability are not incidental concerns at Aircapture, they are central to how we learn, improve, and ultimately scale. If you are a hands-on technical leader who wants to build something lasting at a groundbreaking climate technology company, we want to hear from you.

This role is onsite at our development and production facility in Berkeley, California.

Salary:  $190,000-205,000 per year

What You'll Do Here

• Own and operate test labs, developing data and reporting standards across test platforms
• Lead and develop a high-performing test and reliability team, setting priorities, driving execution, and establishing best practices as Aircapture scales
• Drive system-level testing of FOAK DAC prototypes, including design envelope and full performance characterization
• Define and own system performance metrics, partnering cross-functionally as the authority on system performance and data interpretation
• Responsible for data pipeline for test and operational data, from instrumentation to historian and analysis
• Design and implement HALT/ALT testing of components and sub-systems 
• Build Aircapture's quality foundation including repeatability, FAT requirements, and scaling toward manufacturing
• Develop data-driven reliability models, including degradation, design-life validation, predictive maintenance inputs
• Translate test results into actionable feedback loops for design and operations

Your Skills and Experience Include

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Physics, or a related field, Master's preferred
• 8+ years in test engineering, systems testing, or experimental R&D with end-to-end ownership of hardware test programs
• Experience managing and developing engineering teams, including hiring, mentoring, and driving performance in fast-paced, technical environments
• Strong physics-based understanding of thermofluid and electro-mechanical systems 
• Proven ability to define meaningful performance metrics and build systems to measure them
• Strong instrumentation and Data Acquisition expertise, coupled with advanced analytical skills and ability to work closely with data engineering
• Background in quality/reliability systems, such as FAT, reliability testing, failure analysis, early-stage QMS
• Self-directed and decisive in ambiguous environments; full ownership from scoping through delivery
• Excellent cross-functional communicator; translates data into insight and pushes back when needed
• Bonus: industrial or energy hardware, scaling test/quality functions, reliability engineering or predictive maintenance

Aircapture strives to create a safe, inclusive, equitable, and diverse workplace. Every teammate adds to who we are, diversifying our ideas, experiences, and viewpoints and making us stronger. We hope you feel welcome here.