QA Product Specialist- Industrial Communication

ABOUT HMS NETWORKS

We shape the connected world!

HMS stands for Hardware Meets Software and we work to make the world more connected, productive, and sustainable. HMS industrial communication products enable millions of machines such as robots, drives and air-conditioners to get connected to software and systems – A necessity to meet the future demands for energy efficiency and sustainability.

We build the products that make industrial equipment talk to each other. Our communication cards and modules sit inside machines, robots and control cabinets around the world, connecting them to networks such as EtherNet/IP and PROFINET.

HMS Networks is a global leader in industrial ICT, connecting devices and systems across factory automation. Our Waterloo site is a center of expertise in industrial communications interfaces, working as part of HMS's global hardware community alongside teams in Sweden, France, and other locations around the world.

ROLE PURPOSE

We’re looking for a QA Product Specialist to join our R&D team in Waterloo, Ontario. You’ll make sure our industrial communication products (PC based interface cards, Gateways and PLC communication modules) work the way customers need them to across the whole product lifecycle, from verification and validation during development through to release and customer demonstrations. You’ll build real test setups with PLCs, I/O, sensors and actuators and turn them into automated test benches that run from our CI pipeline, reusable across future projects to cut validation time. When a customer opportunity comes up, you’ll turn that hands-on lab knowledge into portable demo kits that show key customers how our products fit into their systems, whether in our lab or at their sites. Over time, you’ll become the first technical contact for key customers.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Verify and validate our industrial communication products (PC based interface cards, Gateways and PLC communication modules) throughout development, with functional, interoperability, regression and performance testing.
• Look at our products through the customers’ eyes and challenge their weaknesses before they reach the market.
• Review requirements and specifications and write test plans and test cases that prove our products work in real systems and meet customers’ needs.
• Build and maintain real test setups with PLCs, remote I/O, sensors, actuators and third-party devices from multiple vendors.
• See defects through: reproduce them, report them clearly, help find root causes, and confirm the fixes.
• Design, build and own automated test benches (PLC, relays, I/O, cameras), including the test code, the reusable test libraries and the interfaces that let our CI pipeline drive them, with the help of AI tools.
• Grow automated test coverage step by step, from sanity and regression tests on every code push to a product validation suite that can re-validate a product in hours, even years after release.
• Prepare demo setups and present our products to key customers, in our lab or at their sites, showing how they fit into their systems.
• Become the first technical contact for key customers: answer their technical questions and support their evaluations. This is separate from HMS technical support.
• Work closely with development, product management and sales and bring customer feedback into test plans, and keep the team informed on test status and release readiness.

QUALIFICATIONS

Required

• A degree or diploma in electrical, electronics, automation, computer engineering, engineering technology, or equivalent experience.
• 3+ years of hands-on work in industrial automation or in testing embedded or industrial products.
• Hands-on experience with at least one industrial Ethernet protocol: PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, EtherCAT or other.
• Solid programming fundamentals in Python (or C#, C/C++): you write, debug and maintain your own test code, organized in a framework such as pytest or Robot Framework (setup and teardown, parameterized tests, pass/fail reports a CI pipeline can read) and kept in Git. AI assistants are welcome, but you understand every line you ship.
• Experience setting up automation interfaces between test code and hardware, for example controlling relays, I/O, power supplies or cameras directly from a test script, exchanging data with a PLC from a PC over an industrial protocol, or calling a C API or configuration tool from a script. You have also started a test bench from a CI pipeline.
• Hands-on PLC work: wiring, configuring, programming (Ladder, Structured Text / SCL or other IEC 61131-3 languages) and commissioning PLC-based systems with sensors and actuators.
• Confidence troubleshooting real systems (network captures, PLC diagnostics), and the ability to reproduce and document a problem precisely.
• Experience working directly with customers (on-site commissioning, training or technical presentations).

Preferred

• Experience with more than one industrial communication protocol: EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, EtherCAT or DeviceNet.
• Hands-on industrial automation experience: configuring and programming PLCs and the controller side of a network including PC-based solutions, with engineering tools such as Siemens TIA Portal, Rockwell Studio 5000, or Beckhoff TwinCAT.
• Building demo, prototype or test enclosures: layout drawings, BOMs, mounting and cable management.
• Experience in testing: creating test plans, preparing test environments and setups, executing tests and reporting results.
• Testing PC software: Commissioning and configuration tools and C APIs, including writing small C test applications against an API.
• Building test automation from scratch: setting up the framework, CI pipelines for hardware test benches (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI or Jenkins) and virtual machines or containers for test environments.
• Experience integrating AI assistants into your day-to-day workflow to speed up test design, analysis, execution and reporting.
• Experience with conformance testing for industrial protocols (ODVA, PI or ETG).
• Security testing of connected products (vulnerability scanning, fuzzing or robustness testing, penetration testing).
• Jira, or equivalent tools for defect reporting and V&V activity tracking.

KEY COMPETENCIES

• Full command of written and spoken English, with strong communication and presentation skills: you explain technical topics clearly to key customers, adapting your message to your audience.
• Customer-oriented and credible: you listen, work out what the customer really needs, answer technical questions precisely.
• Rigorous and analytical, with a strong quality focus: you look for what can go wrong, dig down to the root cause, and document it precisely enough for others to reproduce it.
• Organized and autonomous: you plan and own your work end to end, from test planning and setup through execution, reporting and customer demonstrations.
• Long-term ownership: you treat a test bench like a product (documented, reliable and easy for others to run), and you can drive it as a project alongside day-to-day validation.
• You bring customer feedback to development and product management.
• Eager to learn new protocols, tools and technologies, including AI, and to share what you learn with the team.

WHY JOIN US

• Real products, shipped worldwide, that you own end to end.
• Deep expertise in industrial communication - specialized, rare, and durable.
• An experienced local team, inside an international R&D organization.
• A hybrid schedule from our Waterloo office.
• Paid vacation.

WORKING CONDITIONS

Hybrid schedule from our Waterloo, ON, CA office. Mostly office-based, with prolonged periods of sitting.

TRAVEL

0-5%

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

HMS Networks provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, HMS Networks complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.