Senior Software Engineer, Test
Field AI
Listing collected from Field AI's career site. NextChapter is independent of Field AI.
Irvine, CA · $155k–$185k a year · Posted July 29, 2026
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Where Irvine, CA ranks
Where Irvine, CA placed in our monthly rankings, month by month. Each month stays online at its own address.
November 2026
- #6Cities with the most jobs that do not need a four-year degree in the West Coast124 jobs · of 47
- #10Best cities for legal pay after cost of living$129k · of 20
- #10Best cities for life sciences and biotech pay after cost of living$120k · of 10
- #10Best cities for software and engineering jobs in the West Coast586 openings · of 60
- #11Best all-round cities for new graduates in the West Coast55 / 100 · of 39
- #13Best cities for manufacturing and industrial pay after cost of living$136k · of 35
Rankings about engineering jobs
- Best cities for software and engineering jobs #1 San Francisco (3,412 openings)
- Best cities for engineering pay after cost of living #1 San Mateo ($216k)
- Most requested AI skills in engineering jobs #1 AI tools in daily work (6.1%)
- AI tools named most often in engineering jobs #1 Claude (1.7%)
- Employers with the most engineering jobs #1 Amazon (2,992 roles)
Pay compared with the market
This listing pays about $170,000 a year. Across 1,013 open senior software engineer listings that state pay, the middle half runs $167,500 to $222,500 and the median is $200,000. That is inside the middle half of those listings, 15% below the median.
Listed pay is what employers advertise, not what people are paid.
Senior Software Engineer salaries by state · Check your own pay
How AI is used in this kind of work
Among software quality assurance analysts and testers, AI is already used for a large share of the tasks. Measured exposure for software quality assurance analysts and testers: 52% (high).
Share of this job’s tasks that AI is already used for at work, from real usage. It is not a forecast of job loss, and a low number means no use seen yet. Source: Anthropic Economic Index.
Skills this job asks for
Say which you have and which you want to build. We use it to match you to jobs like this one.
About the job
FieldAI’s Irvine team is where embodied AI meets real robots, real sensors, and real field deployments. Based in the heart of Southern California’s robotics ecosystem, we build risk-aware, reliable, field-ready AI systems that solve the hardest problems in robotics and unlock the full potential of embodied intelligence. If you want your work to ship, get tested on hardware, and improve through real deployments, Irvine is the place. We go beyond typical data-driven approaches or pure transformer-only architectures, combining rigorous engineering with learning systems proven in globally deployed solutions that deliver results today and get better every time our robots run in the field.
What You’ll Get to Do
Design, build, and maintain a scalable automated testing framework using Playwright and TypeScript, treating test infrastructure with the exact same engineering rigor as production code.
Embed directly within Product Engineering teams, shifting testing left by collaborating during the technical design phase to define test strategies and data-testid selectors before features are coded.
Own the continuous delivery (CD) gateway, optimizing Playwright parallelization, sharding, and containerization to keep PR build times fast, stable, and clear of flaky tests.
Bridge the gap between cloud services and robotics simulation, writing end-to-end tests that mock, stub, or interact with simulated robot APIs to validate complex mission-scheduling and data-ingestion workflows.
Architect robust test-data management strategies, implementing efficient setup and teardown hooks to ensure test environments remain pristine across high-frequency browser and API test runs.
Build observability and reporting tooling (e.g., custom Playwright reporters or dashboards) that gives engineering teams immediate, actionable visibility into regressions and product health.
What You Have
Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field (or equivalent professional experience).
5-8 years of experience.
Strong software engineering fundamentals, with professional experience writing clean, maintainable code in TypeScript, JavaScript, or another modern object-oriented/functional language.
Deep hands-on experience with Playwright, including advanced patterns like Page Object Models, network interception/mocking, custom fixtures, and multi-auth state handling.
A "shift-left" engineering mindset, with a proven track record of embedding with developers, reviewing PRs for testability, and advocating for automated coverage over manual QA.
Solid understanding of modern web architectures and APIs, including the ability to debug network calls, inspect DOM elements, and write automated tests directly against REST or GraphQL APIs.
Experience managing CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI) and integrating automated test execution seamlessly into developer delivery workflows.)
The Extras That Set You Apart
Experience building Playwright infrastructure for large or complex products, such as microfrontend architectures, real-time data streaming web apps, or dashboard systems handling high-frequency state updates.
Background working in robotics, IoT, or hardware-adjacent software spaces, where automated UI/API tests interact with physical devices, hardware emulators, or simulation environments.
Advanced Docker and cloud infrastructure experience (AWS/GCP), specifically around scaling test agents or orchestrating localized environments for isolated end-to-end testing.
Aligning Test Quality with Production Quality by identifying testing gaps and improve product observability.
Our salary range is generous and we consider each individual’s background and experience when determining final compensation. Base pay may vary based on role scope, job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and the Irvine, California market.
Why Join FieldAI in Irvine? In Irvine, you will work where the robots are. Our local team builds and tests systems on real hardware with real sensors, then ships them to operate in unstructured, previously unknown environments around the world. We are solving one of robotics’ hardest challenges: reliable deployment outside the lab. Our Field Foundational Models™ raise the bar for perception, planning, localization, and manipulation, with an emphasis on explainability and safety for real-world use. You will collaborate with a world-class team that thrives on creativity, resilience, and bold thinking. We bring deep experience from organizations such as DeepMind, NASA JPL, Boston Dynamics, NVIDIA, Amazon, Tesla Autopilot, Cruise, Zoox, Toyota Research Institute, and SpaceX, along with a track record of field deployments and strong performance in DARPA challenge segments.
Be Part of the Next Robotics Revolution We are looking for builders who want their work to leave the whiteboard and show up on robots. If you enjoy tackling tough, uncharted questions and working across disciplines, you will find your people here. Our teams span AI, software, robotics engineering, product, field deployment, and technical communication, all focused on shipping systems that perform in the real world.
Our headquarters is in Irvine, and we partner closely with teams there as well as colleagues across the US and around the world. Join us in Southern California and help define what dependable, field-ready autonomy looks like.
We value diverse perspectives and are committed to fostering an inclusive workplace. We evaluate candidates and employees based on merit, qualifications, and performance, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, national origin, ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, or any other legally protected status.