Automotive Software Test Program Manager

Role summary / purpose Design, build, and maintain comprehensive project plans including scope, schedule, budget, and risk management. Lead the gathering of product requirements and project scope across multiple teams and business functions. Monitor progress against plan and develop recovery strategies when projects deviate from baseline. Serve as the main point of contact for the test organization and program management team, ensuring effective communication and coordination across all stakeholders. Key responsibilities • Design and deliver executive-level presentations to support governance processes for Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) • Assemble and publish effective status reports for diverse audiences from project team members to executives • Design and run effective program-level meetings to communicate status and coordinate efforts • Collaborate with peers, managers, and team members across the organization to solve problems, develop plans, and coordinate work • Promote collaboration and transparency, building trusting relationships between business delivery and other organizational entities • Act as a change agent in the organization's Agile transformation, demonstrating strong leadership skills with a positive and collaborative attitude • Develop test cycle plans, schedules, and timelines • Define project scope by prioritizing features and systems under test, considering product direction and test strategy • Build and manage the product backlog, ensuring transparency and team understanding • Lead the creation of Test Epics for features and systems as part of PI Planning preparation • Participate in Scrum events and collaborate with the team • Conduct retrospectives on completed projects to support process, policy, and tool-set improvements • Evaluate feedback at each iteration • Define and specify required vehicle variants to support test project scope • Plan, procure, and maintain vehicle components including surrogate prototypes and instrumented parts • Analyze bills of materials to identify surrogate parts and minimize unnecessary ordering • Define test cycles in line with software release schedules and software change management processes • Maintain and communicate updated ARXML files to modeling and interface teams • Perform software updates and communicate software release information to the test team • Monitor and report progress of test project execution, software maturity, and vehicle hardware and software defects • Discuss all critical defects in program Scrum meetings • Conduct regular analysis of project dashboards to understand progress and overall program health • Follow up and manage incident lifecycle to ensure timely incident disposition Requirements – education & experience • 6 years of experience in automotive software development and quality • 3 years of experience in program management • Expert-level project management expertise Required skills • Project planning and management • Risk management • Requirements gathering and scope definition • Executive communication and presentation skills • Agile and Scrum methodologies • Test planning and cycle management • Hardware and software configuration management • Stakeholder collaboration and relationship building • Change management and leadership • Incident and defect management • Dashboard and metrics analysis