QA Engineer, Connected Devices — Electric Team

About the role

• We are looking for a QA Engineer to own quality across the firmware and software integration layer of BURN's electric stove platform. This is a hands-on, greenfield role: you will design test strategies, build automation tooling, instrument hardware, and collaborate daily with firmware engineers, backend developers, and mobile engineers to ship reliable, connected cooking devices to customers across Africa.
• You will own quality end-to-end across a stack that spans physical stove hardware, embedded Linux gateways, AWS IoT Core cloud infrastructure, and a customer-facing PAYG mobile application. No single layer is out of scope.

Key responsibilities
Test Strategy & Coverage

• Design and execute the system-level QA strategy for BURN's electric stove platform, spanning firmware, IoT gateway, cloud backend, and mobile app layers.
• Define risk-based test priorities: identify the failure modes that would cause a customer's stove to stop working on payday and ensure these are covered first.
• Own the full defect lifecycle: triage cross-layer bugs spanning hardware, firmware, APIs, and mobile; write reproducible reports that bridge hardware and software evidence; track resolution to verified closure.
• Feed quality signals into engineering planning: defect escape rates, coverage gaps, and field incident trends that should drive sprint prioritisation.

Hardware & Embedded Testing

• Validate MQTT-based device-to-cloud communication pipelines under real field conditions: intermittent GSM connectivity, packet loss, power instability, and offline/reconnect recovery.
• Test communication protocol reliability across layers relevant to stove hardware, including payload encoding/ decoding and store-and-forward behaviour at the gateway.

Cloud & Payment Integration Testing

• Validate the full PAYG payment flow end-to-end: payment callback ingestion → backend processing → IoT gateway command delivery → physical stove state confirmation.
• Build and maintain AWS IoT Core validation tooling: device provisioning, certificate lifecycle management, MQTT topic permissions, and Device Shadow synchronisation.
• Perform database-level assertions on payment and unlock records: verify correct record creation, idempotency on duplicate payment callbacks, referential integrity between payment and device tables, and failed-payment device state.
•  Test the customer-facing PAYG mobile application: BLE device onboarding flows, offline/online state recovery, and background MQTT connectivity during live hardware operations.

What you will collaborate on

• Work alongside firmware engineers to define testable hardware states and validate firmware against integration contracts — ensuring backend systems and hardware communicate reliably across the full PAYG flow.
• Contribute to the design and build of an automated hardware test rig for stove components: simulate PAYG lock/unlock cycles, power interruption recovery, long-run stability, and actuator state verification using Raspberry Pi or similar edge nodes.
• Partner with backend engineers on API contract testing, payment and unlock record validation, and payment callback idempotency verification.
• Collaborate with the mobile team on BLE onboarding flows, offline state recovery, and background connectivity testing for the customer app.
• Work with the field operations team to translate real-world stove failures and customer support patterns into new regression test coverage.

What we are looking for.

• This is a senior individual-contributor role. We would typically expect 4+ years in QA/test engineering, software development, or hardware/embedded engineering — though we weigh demonstrated capability over years served.

Required

• Production-grade test automation: scripted test platforms, hardware simulators, or telemetry pipeline tooling built for real engineering use — not just scripting exercises. Language is secondary to engineering rigour.
• MQTT protocol depth: QoS levels, retained messages, Last Will and Testament, and experience testing at both the broker level and the device client level.
• AWS IoT Core experience: device provisioning, certificate and policy management, shadow synchronisation, and MQTT permission validation.
• Database-level test validation using PostgreSQL or equivalent: asserting payment records, device state flags, idempotency, and referential integrity.
• Time-series observability tooling for device fleet monitoring, dashboard design, and alerting configuration.
• Structured automation frameworks: Robot Framework or equivalent, with test plan design, regression suite ownership, and CI integration.
• Field IoT deployment awareness: intermittent connectivity, offline resilience, store-and-forward patterns, and low-bandwidth edge environments.
• Cross-discipline communication: able to write defect reports and collaborate fluently with firmware, backend, and mobile engineers across a single bug lifecycle.

Strongly Preferred

• Hardware test rig design: instrumented test benches, relay-controlled power simulation, and distributed Raspberry Pi or similar edge node deployments.
• Communication protocol validation: RS-485, CAN-Bus, SPI, I²C — payload encoding/decoding and automated protocol pipeline testing.
• Docker for containerized test environments and CI/CD pipeline integration.
• BLE device onboarding and Android application testing for IoT control apps.
• OWASP API Security awareness applied to payment endpoints and device command interfaces.

Education & Background

• A degree in Computer Science, Software or Computer Engineering, Electrical/Electronic Engineering, Mechatronics, Telecommunications, or a related technical field — or equivalent demonstrated experience building and testing real software and hardware systems.
• We weigh what you have built over where you studied. A strong track record of test automation, hardware instrumentation, or IoT tooling can stand in for formal qualifications.
• A background in mechatronics, electronics, or embedded systems engineering is a strong foundation for the hardware-facing parts of this role.
• Nice to have: relevant certifications such as ISTQB (testing) or AWS (e.g. Cloud Practitioner or an Associate-level certification) are a plus, not a requirement.

What we offer

• Greenfield ownership: you will build BURN's Connected Devices QA infrastructure from the ground up test rigs, automation frameworks, observability dashboards not inherit a legacy system.
• A cross-disciplinary engineering team where firmware, hardware, cloud, and mobile engineers work together rare in Nairobi and invaluable for a multi-discipline engineer.
• Direct impact: the quality infrastructure you build determines whether a customer's stove unlocks reliably on payday across markets where this matters enormously.