Six Figure Work

Principal Test Automation Engineer

d-Matrix

Company websited-matrix.ai (d-Matrix, opens in new tab)

Base salary $195K  to $285K

Employer-published annual base salary, USD. Advertised base range in Santa Clara, CA

Apply (opens in new tab)

You apply on the employer's own site. Six Figure Work does not handle applications.

  • LocationSanta Clara, CA
  • WorkplaceHybrid
  • Status at last checkSource accepting applications when checked
  • Last checked (11 min ago) · observed since

About this job

Join d-Matrix and help build the future of AI inference. We’ve pioneered a memory-centric architecture that brings compute directly into memory, making AI faster, more energy efficient, and accessible on a global scale. From chips and software to rack-scale systems, our team is tackling some of AI infrastructure’s hardest challenges — and shipping breakthrough technology today. If you want to create what comes next and help make infinite inference possible, we’d love to hear from you.

Our culture is built on respect, collaboration, and direct communication. We value humility, we believe our different perspectives lead to better solutions, and we’re looking for people who are driven by execution and energized by hard problems.

Principal Test Automation Engineer

Location: Santa Clara, Ca / Remote, US

Role Overview

d-Matrix is hiring a Principal Software Engineer to define and build how we use AI-enabled automation across the software development lifecycle, from build and CI through testing and release. Our codebase spans a kernel compiler, firmware, device drivers, and an inference serving stack running on silicon we designed ourselves. Tests require real hardware, correctness is numerical rather than pass/fail, and failures can originate in any of several layers. You will set the technical direction for AI-enabled workflow automation and build the foundations other engineers rely on, including the agent harness, integrations into GitLab, Jira, test results, and logs, guardrails, and evaluation methods that show whether an automation actually helped. You will stay hands-on and ship the hardest pieces yourself, working alongside a Senior/Staff engineer in the same area while raising the bar for how the broader engineering organization uses AI in its daily work.

What You Will Do

  • Set the technical direction for AI-enabled workflow automation across build, CI, test, and release.

  • Build the shared foundation, including the agent harness and tool integrations into GitLab, Jira, test results, logs, and observability data.

  • Develop evaluation methodology to measure whether an automation saves time and preserves correctness.

  • Define guardrails and standards for where AI acts autonomously, where it proposes and a human decides, and how every change stays auditable.

  • Deliver the first Quality Engineering automations, including cross-layer failure attribution, failure clustering and defect deduplication, coverage-gap analysis, and release-readiness summaries.

  • Raise the bar across engineering through shared patterns, design reviews, and mentoring.

  • Determine when an agent, a deterministic tool with a narrow model step, or a simple script is the right solution, and teach that judgment to others.

What You Will Bring

  • Extensive production software engineering experience, with strong Python skills.

  • Enough Rust and/or C++ experience to understand build flows and diagnose compiler errors.

  • Experience shipping AI-enabled tools or automation that others relied on in production, beyond demos.

  • Deep hands-on experience with LLM APIs, agent harnesses, tool integration, and context engineering.

  • Experience designing evaluations for nondeterministic systems, showing that an automation helped without breaking something else.

  • Sound judgment about when AI is the right tool, including examples of choosing not to use it.

  • Strong fluency across the development lifecycle, including CI/CD, testing, and release processes.

  • A track record of setting technical direction across teams that do not report to you.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Exposure to compilers, firmware, or hardware-in-the-loop test environments.

  • Experience building tool integrations with MCP or similar protocols.

  • Experience working with GitLab, Jira, or Prometheus APIs.

  • Experience managing cost and latency in LLM-based systems.

  • Daily use of AI coding tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, or Copilot, with well-formed opinions on where they help and where they do not.

Equal Opportunity Employment Policy

d-Matrix is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and affirmative action employer. We’re committed to fostering an inclusive environment where everyone feels welcomed and empowered to do their best work. We hire the best talent for our teams, regardless of race, religion, color, age, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, ancestry, genetic information, marital status, national origin, political affiliation, or veteran status. Our focus is on hiring teammates with humble expertise, kindness, dedication, and a willingness to embrace challenges and learn together every day.

d-Matrix does not accept resumes or candidate submissions from external agencies. We appreciate the interest and effort of recruitment firms, but we kindly request that individuals interested in opportunities with d-Matrix apply directly through our official channels. This approach allows us to streamline our hiring processes and maintain a consistent and fair evaluation of all applicants. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

Source: d-Matrix on Ashby · View original posting (opens in new tab)

Pay in context

This role's base floor ($195,000) is above 68% of the 4,309 Software Engineering roles in California listed on this site; 20 others list the same floor. Their median floor is $176,000; the middle half runs from $149,100 to $202,000.

Only jobs on this site count, and each one publishes a base salary of $100,000 or more, so this compares six-figure jobs with each other, not with the whole market. Computed Nov 7, 2026.

This range next to 6 other live d-Matrix roles with the nearest advertised base floor
Chart as a table
This range next to 6 other live d-Matrix roles with the nearest advertised base floor
RolePublished base
Principal Test Automation Engineer (this listing)$195K - $285K
Director, Quality and Reliability Engineering – AI Hardware$195K - $285K
Principal Hardware Systems Engineer$195K - $285K
Director Site Reliability Engineer, AI Infrastructure$195K - $285K
Principal Architect, Performance Analysis and Modeling$195K - $285K
Technical Program Manager - Hardware/Systems, Principal$196K - $300K
Director of Sales$200K - $250K

Same $100K to $400K scale as every card. All d-Matrix roles · How to read the bar

Observed changes

  1. First observed on the employer's board
  2. Began meeting the published-salary criteria
  3. fields changed
Observed since
Employer-stated posting date
2026-10-15
Where this pay comes from

Location as the employer wrote it: Santa Clara

USD 195,000 – 285,000 · 1 YEAR · Salary

Method
Structured pay field published by the employer
Checked
Rule set
us-base-v2

The employer's job board publishes this pay as a dedicated data field. We read the field directly; no interpretation was needed.

What we verified

  • The pay figures come from the employer's own listing, quoted exactly above.
  • The pay is an annual base salary in US dollars with a minimum of at least $100,000.
  • The role was publicly listed on the employer's job board when last checked.

We do not verify what the employer will actually offer, whether the employer is still recruiting for the role, or anything beyond what the employer published. Full methodology.