Engineer, Whole Vehicle Test Requirements and Validation – Body Exterior

Scout Motors • Novi, MI

10d • $110,000 - $135,000 • Onsite

About The Position

Scout Motors is looking to revolutionize the electric pick-up truck & rugged SUV marketplace. This role will be instrumental in achieving this by owning whole-vehicle validation definition and execution for body exterior systems and attributes. This includes closure mechanics, sealing performance, water management, wind noise, lighting, and fit-and-finish consistency across real-world customer use cases. The position involves defining and developing validation strategies for limit operating conditions, such as extreme environmental exposure, severe corrosion facilities, high-mileage structural durability routes, and high-pressure car washes. These strategies will drive exterior component design requirements related to material deformation, finish degradation, mechanism fatigue, and seal stability. The role requires establishing key validation routes, environmental chamber profiles, and aerodynamic/vibration scenarios that represent worst-case and boundary conditions, providing critical input to various vehicle systems. The engineer will act as the source of truth for real-world environmental impacts, aerodynamic forces, water intrusion vectors, and structural loads on the vehicle exterior, ensuring engineering teams have accurate physical inputs for component and system design. Collaboration with cross-functional teams, including Body Exterior, Closures, Sealing, Lighting, Electrical, Manufacturing, Supplier Quality, and overall Vehicle teams, is essential for cohesive vehicle-level exterior performance. The position involves developing and managing vehicle-level test cases for exterior system behavior, automated closure functionality, roof systems, exterior trim durability, and interactions with safety or aerodynamic control systems. Translating body exterior functional and attribute targets into executable test procedures, instrumentation strategies, and validation plans at the whole-vehicle level is a key responsibility. Ensuring body exterior physical systems perform flawlessly alongside electrical, lighting, and software interfaces to validate overall vehicle behavior in extreme scenarios is also critical. The role includes traveling to and leading vehicle-level validation campaigns and evaluation trips to various locations to test diverse customer usage profiles and durability routes. Translating customer use cases into validation scenarios with measurable acceptance criteria, defining and validating key vehicle-level exterior attributes, and driving test execution and data collection are core functions. The engineer will ensure robust traceability from system requirements to test cases and validation results using lifecycle tools. Collaboration with exterior engineering, body structures, electrical, and vehicle teams to analyze test data, identify performance gaps, root-cause deviations, and resolve cross-functional issues is expected. Finally, documenting validation results, benchmarking competitive vehicle exterior performance, and providing data-driven sign-off recommendations to support vehicle release decisions are key outcomes of this role.

Requirements

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Human Factors, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Software Engineering, or a related technical field.
• At least 4+ years of experience in whole vehicle validation, full-performance testing, and vehicle-level verification testing.
• Hands-on experience using CANoe, INCA, and validation-related instrumentation equipment to capture, log, and parse vehicle network and sensor data.
• Experience defining whole vehicle test plans (DVP), executing physical or vehicle tests, and tracking build/software changes across vehicle fleets.
• Working knowledge of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and product tracking tools (such as Jama, Polarion, DOORS, MagicDraw, or Codebeamer).
• Solid understanding of whole vehicle development phases and products tailored to automotive-specific safety standards, with a focus on enhancing delivery quality, security, and developer experience.
• Experience testing complete vehicle systems to meet automotive-grade standards and ensure compliance with industry regulations.
• Proven ability to work in a truly cross-functional and global environment to align full-vehicle targets.
• Strong interpersonal skills, including ownership, self-motivation, problem-solving, analytical thinking, teamwork, innovation, creativity, and effective communication abilities. You should be able to develop and thrive in working relationships.

Responsibilities

• Own whole-vehicle validation definition and execution for body exterior systems and attributes—including closure mechanics, sealing performance, water management, wind noise, lighting, and fit-and-finish consistency across real-world customer use cases.
• Define and develop validation strategies for limit operating conditions, including extreme environmental exposure, severe corrosion facilities, high-mileage structural durability routes, and high-pressure car washes that drive exterior component design requirements (material deformation, finish degradation, mechanism fatigue, and seal stability).
• Establish key validation routes, environmental chamber profiles, and aerodynamic/vibration scenarios that represent worst-case and boundary conditions, providing critical input to door closures, liftgates, power flush handles, glazing, and wiper/washer systems.
• Act as the source of truth for real-world environmental impacts, aerodynamic forces, water intrusion vectors, and structural loads acting on the vehicle exterior, ensuring engineering teams have accurate physical inputs for component and system design.
• Support cross-functional validation alignment across Body Exterior, Closures, Sealing, Lighting, Electrical, Manufacturing, Supplier Quality, and overall Vehicle teams to ensure cohesive vehicle-level exterior performance and execution.
• Develop and manage vehicle-level test cases covering exterior system behavior, automated closure functionality, roof systems, exterior trim durability, and interaction with safety or aerodynamic control systems.
• Translate body exterior functional and attribute targets into executable test procedures, instrumentation strategies, and validation plans at the whole-vehicle level.
• Ensure body exterior physical systems perform flawlessly alongside electrical, lighting, and software interfaces to validate overall vehicle behavior in extreme hot/cold soak, high-speed driving, and heavy precipitation scenarios.
• Travel to and lead vehicle-level validation campaigns and evaluation trips, including proving grounds, public roads, and extreme hot, cold, and corrosive climate regions to test diverse customer usage profiles and durability routes.
• Translate customer use cases—such as daily closure cycles, highway driving wind noise, heavy downpour operation, payload loading, off-road debris impact, and daily wear-and-tear—into validation scenarios with measurable acceptance criteria.
• Define and validate key vehicle-level exterior attributes, including closure operational efforts, gap/flush stability, wind noise reduction, water management safety, and overall exterior perceived quality.
• Drive test execution and data collection, including route design, vehicle prep, and complex instrumentation setup using water leak detection systems, thermal sensors, strain gauges, pressure sensors, accelerometers, microphones, and specialized data loggers.
• Ensure robust traceability from system requirements to test cases and validation results using lifecycle tools such as Codebeamer, Jama, or Jira.
• Collaborate across exterior engineering, body structures, electrical, and vehicle teams to analyze test data, identify performance gaps, root-cause deviations, and resolve cross-functional issues.
• Document validation results, benchmark competitive vehicle exterior performance, and provide data-driven sign-off recommendations to support vehicle release decisions.

Benefits

• Competitive insurance including: Medical, dental, vision and income protection plans
• 401(k) program with: An employer match and immediate vesting
• Generous Paid Time Off including: 20 days planned PTO, as accrued
• 40 hours of unplanned PTO and 14 company or floating holidays, annually
• Up to 16 weeks of paid parental leave for biological and adoptive parents of all genders
• Paid leave for circumstances related to bereavement, jury duty, voting time, or military leave
• Pay Transparency
• Annual performance bonus program

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level