Espresso - typeText not working

You can bypass the problem by calling setText on the EditText.

   final EditText titleInput = (EditText) activity.findViewById(R.id.titleInput);
   getInstrumentation().runOnMainSync(new Runnable() {
        public void run() {
            titleInput.setText("Engineer");
        }
    });

If the EditText does not has the focus yet, you should click on it first. If this solves your problem, then there is no bug.

onView(withId(R.id.titleInput)).perform(click()).perform(typeText("Engineer"));

Looks like I figured out the issue. It had to do with hardware vs software keyboard.

For Emulators:

Go to Settings -> Language & Input -> switch the Default Input to Sample Soft Keyboard.

For Phones:

Install a software keyboard from the Play store and switch to it. It appears that the native keyboards of some phones do not work.

It works now.

Had the same issue using Espresso 2. As a workaround I'm using replaceText instead of typeText.

public void testSearch() {
      onView(withId(R.id.titleInput)).perform(click(), replaceText("Engineer"));
      onView(withId(R.id.titleInput)).check(matches(withText("Engineer")));
}