Test Engineering Lead

An optical technology company based in Oxfordshire is seeking an experienced Test Engineering Lead to lead its test engineering function as it develops and industrialises a new generation of adaptive optical technologies.

This is a hands‑on technical leadership role with responsibility for defining and delivering the test strategy across the company’s R&D and product development programmes. Working collaboratively across the engineering and scientific teams, you will determine the test, measurement and verification approaches required to answer development questions, demonstrate product performance and support the transition of new technologies towards manufacture.

The role requires both technical depth and creativity. You will be expected to take complex engineering problems and requirements and determine how best to test them – developing new experimental methods, designing and building test setups, establishing appropriate measurement techniques and ensuring the resulting data is accurate, repeatable and meaningful.

Alongside remaining actively involved in this work, you will lead and develop a small test and metrology team and build the function’s technical capability as the company grows.

We are an innovative deep‑technology company developing a new generation of adaptive optical technologies based on proprietary soft optical materials and fluid‑filled lenses.

Bringing together optics, materials science, chemistry and precision engineering, our technology has applications across AR/VR, ophthalmics, adaptive optics and next‑generation optical systems. We work with leading global technology, consumer electronics and medical device companies to develop new solutions that optimise visual performance and enable new product capabilities.

With a substantial patent portfolio, proven technology, in‑house prototype and characterisation capabilities, and early‑stage pilot manufacturing, we are now moving into the next phase of our development: transforming breakthrough science into robust, repeatable and manufacturable products.

This is an exciting point to join a multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers and play a key role in taking genuinely novel optical technology from R&D through industrialisation and towards commercial deployment.

As Test Engineering Lead
, you will take technical ownership of the test engineering function, defining the strategy, methods and capabilities required to support the company’s technology and product development programmes.

Working across multidisciplinary R&D and engineering teams, you will translate business, customer and product requirements into appropriate test and verification strategies. You will work collaboratively with technical leaders across the business to understand development challenges, determine what needs to be measured or demonstrated and establish the testing required to provide robust engineering evidence.

This is not simply a role overseeing established test activities. A key part of the position will be solving new test and measurement problems. You will devise experimental approaches, develop and prove new test methods and setups, establish the quality and repeatability of the resulting data, and use testing and characterisation to answer engineering questions and support technical decision‑making.

You will also own the development of the company’s test and metrology capability, identifying what equipment, methods, laboratory capability and technical resource will be required as development programmes progress. You will lead a small team of test and metrology engineers and technicians, with the opportunity to develop the function further as the business grows.

Critically, this remains a hands‑on engineering…