Software Test Engineer

We are looking for a hands-on Software Test Engineer to ensure the quality and reliability of software solutions used in real-world sensing and data processing systems. 

Optics11 is a deep-tech company developing advanced fiber-optic sensing technologies for challenging environments and applications in energy and underwater security. Our systems enable high-performance sensing and monitoring through advanced photonics, signal processing, and data-driven intelligence.

We are expanding our R&D team with a Software Test Engineer who is passionate about quality, structured validation, and delivering robust software in complex engineering environments. 

As a Software Test Engineer, you will be responsible for defining and executing practical software tests to validate software components (including algorithms, cloud back-end, and user interfaces) that process sensor signals generated by fiber-optic sensing systems. You will work closely with data scientists, signal processing specialists, back-end developers, and software architects to ensure that products meet functional and non-functional requirements.

This role requires a hands-on professional with a proactive mindset, a structured approach to software testing, strong attention to detail, and the ability to understand complex technical systems and translate requirements into effective test strategies.

Key Responsibilities

• Perform functional, integration, regression, system, and end-to-end testing across edge devices, cloud services, APIs, databases, and graphical user interfaces.

• Define test strategies, test plans, test cases, acceptance criteria, and automated test scripts for an edge and cloud software platforms.

• Identify, document, and track software defects, ensuring clear reproduction steps and proper follow-up.

• Collaborate with product owners, developers and engineers to understand system requirements and ensure test coverage.

• Contribute to the development and maintenance of automated test frameworks and pipelines.

• Test edge–cloud behaviour under interrupted connectivity, delayed or duplicated messages, device restarts, software updates, and synchronization failures.

• Validate software performance, reliability, and stability under different operating conditions.

• Support testing of software running on edge hardware, including hardware–software integration in laboratory and field environments.

• Analyse test results and provide clear, actionable feedback to development teams.

• Ensure traceability between requirements, test cases, and test results.

• Integrate automated tests into GitLab CI/CD pipelines and help define appropriate quality gates.

• Contribute to continuous improvement of testing processes, tools, and quality standards.

• Participate in release readiness reviews and ensure software meets quality benchmarks before deployment.

• Join one of Europe’s most promising deep-tech scale-ups.

• Shape the future of a rapidly growing multidisciplinary R&D organization.

• Competitive salary and benefits package.

• Enjoy regular team activities and company events.

• Fresh team lunches provided 3 times/week.

Requirements:

Technical skills

• Familiarity with test management and bug tracking tools (e.g., Jira, TestRail).

• Programming or scripting skills (e.g., Python, C++, Javascript or similar).

• Experience developing automated tests using tools such as Pytest, Playwright, Cypress, Selenium, or comparable frameworks.

• Experience testing web-based graphical user interfaces.

• Experience testing REST APIs, back-end services, or distributed software components.

• Experience with Docker, AWS, Gitlab , Linux and CI/CD pipelines.

• Ability to design structured, maintainable, and reproducible automated tests.

• Familiarity with behaviour-driven development and Gherkin specifications.

Qualifications:

• A degree in computer science, software engineering, embedded systems, or a related technical discipline or equivalent practical experience.

• Proven experience in software testing or quality assurance.

• Strong understanding of software testing methodologies and lifecycle.

• Experience with both exploratory/manual testing and automated testing.

• Experience testing integrated systems rather than only isolated software components.

• Proactive in identifying risks and gaps in requirements and investigating failures across multiple system components.

• Pragmatic and hands-on when working with hardware, software, test environments, and imperfect real-world data. 

• Able to work independently while collaborating closely with different engineering disciplines. 

• Able to communicate technical problems and quality risks clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with AWS or another cloud platform.

• Experience testing data-driven or signal-processing systems.

• Knowledge of embedded systems and hardware–software integration. 

• Experience testing unreliable-network, offline, reconnection, synchronization, and recovery scenarios.

• Experience in high-tech, industrial, or defense-related environments.

• Experience with LabVIEW

Security & Compliance:

You'll be working with clients in the defense and security sectors, obtaining a Certificate of No Objection issued by the AIVD (Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service) is mandatory. This means you will need to undergo a security screening. For more information, please refer to details on security screening.