Lead Verification & Validation Engineer

ALTEN Technology USA•Palo Alto, CA

About The Position

We’re ALTEN Technology USA, an engineering company helping clients bring groundbreaking ideas to life—from advancing space exploration and life-saving medical devices to building autonomous electric vehicles. With 3,000+ experts across North America, we partner with leading companies in aerospace, medical devices, robotics, automotive, commercial vehicles, EVs, rail, and more. As part of the global ALTEN Group—57,000+ engineers in 30 countries—we deliver across the entire product development cycle, from consulting to full project outsourcing. When you join ALTEN Technology USA, you’ll collaborate on some of the world’s toughest engineering challenges, supported by mentorship, career growth opportunities, and comprehensive benefits. We take pride in fostering a culture where employees feel valued, supported, and inspired to grow. We are looking for a Lead Verification & Validation Engineer to join our team. You will be responsible for designing, developing, and executing V&V activities to ensure that our software meets the highest standards of safety and performance. In this role, you will play a critical role in ensuring the quality and reliability of our automotive systems — and serve as a technical lead across the V&V organization, guiding junior engineers and shaping validation strategy at the program level.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience
5+ years of experience in the automotive or relevant industry
Strong understanding of automotive systems, embedded software, and control systems
Demonstrated experience with automotive testing instrumentation and tools
Proficiency in automotive communication protocols such as CAN, LIN, Ethernet, and FlexRay
Working knowledge of IDLs such as DBC, LDF, ARXML, and work with internal IDLs and frameworks
Experience with automotive or aerospace HIL test benches, particularly with dSPACE, Vector VT, or similar platforms
Experience writing and executing automated and manual tests
Deep expertise in the EE architecture and integration of complex automotive systems, including interactions across multiple domains (e.g., body, powertrain, chassis, ADAS) and ECUs
Proven track record of collaborating with large, cross-functional teams across hardware, software, and systems engineering
Deep understanding of software development lifecycle and automotive testing methodologies
Experience in system-level debugging and root-cause analysis across software and hardware boundaries
Proficiency in understanding wiring and logical schematics, network diagrams, and harness drawings
Ability to define and drive system validation plan from concept to production

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with safety-critical software development and industry standards like ISO 26262
Proficiency in programming languages such as C/C++, Python, or MATLAB
Experience testing fully electric vehicles

Responsibilities

Lead V&V strategy definition and own the end-to-end validation plan from concept through production release, setting direction for the broader team
Mentor and provide technical guidance to validation engineers, reviewing test plans, debug approaches, and automation frameworks
Serve as the primary technical escalation point for complex system-level failures, driving root cause analysis and cross-functional resolution
Design, build, and maintain complex automotive system-level test benches to validate automotive systems with a focus on automation
Develop comprehensive verification and validation plans for automotive software systems and features
Design and execute test cases and test scripts to verify system functionality, performance, and safety
Develop and implement automation scripts and tools to enhance testing efficiency and accuracy
Integrate hardware and software components to create reliable and scalable test environments
Lead debug of issues encountered, working with cross-functional teams across the organization on identifying root cause, confirming fixes, and providing guidance on protecting against future regressions
Collaborate with cross-functional teams — including software developers, controls engineers, and systems engineers — to define and implement V&V strategies
Continuously improve testing processes and tools to enhance efficiency and effectiveness
Prepare and present detailed reports on verification activities and results to stakeholders