Manager, System Software Validation & Verification

Ford Motor Company • Palo Alto, CA

4h • $150,200 - $283,500 • Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking an experienced and dynamic person to lead our System Software Verification and Validation (V&V) team. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in automotive testing and a proven track record of managing complex testing projects. This role involves overseeing the planning, execution, and reporting of system level test results to ensure our products meet the highest quality and safety standards. The manager will work directly with development and system engineering teams to develop a validation strategy to verify the system. This manager will be responsible for hiring a team of validation engineers and to then drive the team to meet their committed deliverables as well as working with technical leads and managers across the broader organization to assess risk, communicate status and drive closure to key issues.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering or related technical field.
• 12+ years of experience in automotive systems, embedded software, or system validation.
• Experience leading or mentoring engineers and managing competing program priorities.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills, including experience working across hardware, software, systems engineering, and program teams.
• Experience defining and delivering system-level validation strategies from concept through production.
• Experience managing validation schedules, resources, or lab capacity.
• Familiarity with vehicle testing standards and customer-specific validation requirements.
• Strong understanding of vehicle E/E architecture, embedded software, control systems, and cross-domain integration.
• Experience with system-level testing across benches, HIL platforms, and vehicles; familiarity with tools such as Vector or dSPACE.
• Knowledge of automotive networks and related formats, such as CAN, LIN, Ethernet, FlexRay, DBC, LDF, and ARXML.
• Experience developing, reviewing, or guiding automated and manual test execution, including smoke and regression testing.
• Experience with test automation, smoke and regression testing, requirements traceability, defect triage, and system-level debugging.
• Ability to interpret electrical and logical schematics, network diagrams, and wiring or harness drawings.
• Working knowledge of Automotive SPICE, ISO 26262, or other applicable development and safety processes.
• Experience integrating validation and regression testing into continuous integration workflows.

Responsibilities

• Define and lead the system-level validation strategy for embedded software and vehicle systems, from early development through program release.
• Own the system-level test and validation plan, aligning requirements, risks, program objectives, and timing.
• Partner with systems, feature, software, and attribute owners to establish requirements traceability, test coverage, and clear acceptance criteria.
• Identify validation gaps early and ensure test plans, test cases, and scripts address functional and non-functional requirements.
• Lead validation across integrated systems, ECUs, software, interfaces, and vehicle domains at system level test properties and vehicles.
• Oversee integration, system, and acceptance testing to verify behavior across system boundaries and operating conditions.
• Coordinate test resources, environments, and schedules to meet program milestones.
• Ensure test results, risks, and release-readiness assessments are documented and communicated clearly and on time.
• Lead cross-functional investigations, including root-cause analysis, fix verification, and actions to prevent regression.
• Analyze test results and provide actionable feedback to development teams.
• Establish and monitor metrics for test coverage, execution, defect trends, and validation effectiveness.
• Lead, mentor, and develop validation and verification engineers; assign work based on team priorities and development needs.
• Manage customer validation requirements and present progress, results, and risks to senior leaders and stakeholders.
• Foster a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, innovation, quality, and safety.

Benefits

• Immediate medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage
• Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up child care and more
• Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and more
• Vehicle discount program for employees and family members and management leases
• Tuition assistance
• Established and active employee resource groups
• Paid time off for individual and team community service
• A generous schedule of paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day
• Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.

What This Job Offers

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