Sr Validation Engineer Jobs in Rochester, MI (NOW HIRING)

Job Description
At General Motors, our product teams are redefining mobility. Through a human-centered design process, we create vehicles and experiences that are designed not just to be seen, but to be felt. We're turning today's impossible into tomorrow's standard -from breakthrough hardware and battery systems to intuitive design, intelligent software, and next-generation safety and entertainment features.
Every day, our products move millions of people as we aim to make driving safer, smarter, and more connected, shaping the future of transportation on a global scale.
The Role
The Staff Validation Technical Expert (Staff VTE) is the senior technical expert responsible for end-to-end integration and validation of complex features and systems within the Occupant Protection domain, with focus on Cockpit (i.e., Instrument Panel, Floor Console, Passenger & Knee Airbag) and Roof Rail Airbag Deployment Systems across programs, architectures, and global regions.
This role owns and continuously improves validation strategies, standard work, evaluation methods, and execution practices to ensure feature and system behavior is robust, consistent, compliant, and audit-ready.
The Staff VTE provides technical leadership, expert judgment, risk assessment, and coaching to program and regional validation teams, driving enterprise alignment, strong execution, and validation readiness across the portfolio.
What You'll Do

• Own system integration and validation strategy for complex, multi-variant features and systems across programs, architectures, and market requirements.
• Translate stakeholder and system intent into end-to-end use cases, scenarios, and validation flows, including nominal behavior, cross-domain interactions, failure modes, diagnostics, degraded operation, and recovery.
• Develop and standardize reusable validation methods, templates, checklists, and test plans for bench, HIL/SIL, virtual, and vehicle-level testing.
• Define integration test campaigns, including test structure, sample selection, automation opportunities, and reuse strategies across programs.
• Lead safety, regulatory, and launch-readiness validation, ensuring evidence is complete, traceable, audit-ready, and ready to support compliance and launch decisions.
• Provide technical direction to cross-functional teams, coach engineers on validation strategy and coverage, and lead root-cause analysis and recovery planning for complex integration issues.
• Identify gaps across requirements, integration scenarios, and test coverage, and drive improvements to methods, standards, architectures, and validation plans.
• Serve as a technical leader for the domain by advancing validation capability, improving efficiency and automation, and sharing best practices across the enterprise.
• Provide technical consultation on cockpit, roof rail airbag, and interfacing trim performance relative to component and subsystem specifications.

Your Skills & Abilities (Required Qualifications)

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical, Mechanical, Computer, Systems, or related engineering discipline.
• 8+ years of relevant validation, integration, systems, or comparable technical experience, preferably across multiple programs and complex cross-domain features.
• Demonstrated expertise validating integrated systems at vehicle, bench, virtual, or HIL/SIL level, including exploratory and failure-mode-based evaluations.
• Deep expertise in system deployment, failure mode and root cause analysis, and applicable regulations, including FMVSS 201, 208, 302, and UN ECE R21, with broad cross-domain integration knowledge.
• Experience developing or improving validation strategies, methods, templates, or standard work with broad organizational impact.
• Experience supporting safety, compliance, regulatory, and launch-readiness activities, including preparation or review of validation evidence and sign-off inputs.
• Strong technical leadership, influence, communication, and decision-making skills in complex cross-functional environments.

What Will Give You A Competitive Edge (Preferred Requirements)

• Advanced degree in engineering, systems engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Experience driving enterprise or cross-program change through new methods, tools, automation, standards, or governance.
• Experience leading technical reviews, investigations, audit-ready evidence preparation, and senior-level risk communication.
• Experience mentoring engineers and shaping organizational capability without direct reporting authority.

GM does not provide immigration-related sponsorship for this role. Do not apply for this role if you will need GM immigration sponsorship now or in the future. This includes direct company sponsorship, entry of GM as the immigration employer of record on a government form, and any work authorization requiring a written submission or other immigration support from the company (e.g., H1-B, OPT, STEM OPT, CPT, TN, J-1, etc).This role is categorized as hybrid. This means the selected candidate is expected to report to a specific location at least 3 times a week {or other frequency dictated by their manager}.The selected candidate will be required to travel <25% for this role.This job may be eligible for relocation benefits.This position requires the ability to legally operate a motor vehicle on a regular basis and successfully complete a Motor Vehicle Report review.
About GM
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