HIL Hardware Engineer - Virtual Validation

About Us

Fortescue is both a proud West Australian company and a global green solutions business. We are recognised for our culture, innovation and industry-leading development of infrastructure, mining assets and green energy initiatives.

Our Opportunity

Work Location: Dawson Rd, Airport – Fortescue’s Perth office is located on the traditional lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people

Roster: Monday to Friday

The HIL Hardware Engineer works with vendors to design, build, and maintain hardware benches and HIL rigs used in MIL, SIL, and HIL testing to support verification and validation activities. Reporting to the Virtual Validation Lead, the role focuses on physical test environments—including control cabinets, wiring, I/O interfaces, instrumentation, networks, and safety systems—enabling real hardware to be tested against simulations. Operating within established validation frameworks and toolchains, the engineer delivers robust, safe, and repeatable test rigs while collaborating with simulation, verification, and development teams to ensure setups accurately represent target systems, support efficient testing, and allow reproduction of site issues in controlled lab environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and commission Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) rigs and bench test systems aligned with defined architectures and engineering standards
• Define and implement hardware architectures, including I/O mappings, network topologies, and safety interlocks to replicate target system configurations
• Integrate ECUs, PLCs, controllers, sensors, actuators, and network devices into HIL rigs and test environments
• Maintain, upgrade, and manage rig hardware, firmware, calibration, and configuration in line with configuration management practices
• Collaborate with Simulation Engineers to integrate rigs with MIL/SIL/HIL toolchains, enabling synchronisation between physical hardware and simulation environments
• Prepare and configure rigs for test campaigns, including wiring, instrumentation, and system configuration setup
• Support issue reproduction and troubleshooting by replicating field conditions on test benches and resolving hardware, I/O, power, and communication faults
• Apply engineering standards, safety requirements, and quality processes in the design, operation, and modification of rigs and test systems
• Develop and maintain technical documentation, including schematics, wiring diagrams, network drawings, BOMs, and operating procedures
• Manage rig utilisation and drive continuous improvement through standardisation, scalability, and optimisation of hardware, tooling, and infrastructure.

Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor of Engineering (or equivalent) in Electrical, Mechatronic, Control Systems or related discipline
• Practical experience designing, building or maintaining test rigs, HIL benches or hardware test environments for embedded or control systems
• Strong understanding of electronics hardware integration, including wiring, signal conditioning, power distribution, instrumentation and safety systems
• Experience with industrial or vehicle communication networks (e.g. CAN, Ethernet, fieldbuses) and associated tools for configuration and troubleshooting
• Hands‑on experience with Hardware‑in‑the‑Loop platforms (e.g. dSPACE, National Instruments, Vector, Speedgoat) and their configuration and integration (highly advantageous)
• Exposure to Model‑Based Design and simulation toolchains (e.g. MATLAB/Simulink) and their use with HIL environments (advantageous)
• Experience across the system or software development lifecycle, including integration, configuration management and test support
• Proficiency with version control (e.g. GitHub) for managing rig configurations, wiring documents and related artefacts
• Experience with Jira and Confluence or similar tools for work tracking and documentation.

Our Commitment

Fortescue is deeply committed to providing a safe culture that builds respect, fosters inclusiveness, and values diversity. We celebrate individual strengths and team members from all backgrounds are encouraged to bring their whole selves to work. Our global workforce drives and promotes an inclusive culture, both within our organisation and throughout the communities we interact with across the world. Diverse backgrounds include First Nations Peoples, people with differing abilities, LGBTIQ+ community, gender, neurodiverse, cultural diversity, all age groups, and those with an intersectional or multiple diverse characteristics. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply.

https://fortescue.com/careers 

Internal Candidates / Current Contractors please apply via Success Factors Careers Portal. For further information on how to apply please visit the Fortescue Hub. 

Fortescue reserves the right to close applications early should a suitable pool of candidates be identified. Fortescue will never contact you to ask for payment of any kind, whether directly or through a third party.