Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Verification Program Director

🎯 Role Definition

The Verification Program Director is a senior leader responsible for defining and executing the enterprise verification and validation (V&V) strategy for complex systems and products. This role owns verification program planning, resource and budget management, cross-functional coordination with systems engineering, software/hardware teams, QA, and product management, and ensures traceable, auditable verification evidence to support releases, certifications, and customer acceptance. The ideal candidate combines technical depth in test engineering and automation with program management discipline and stakeholder influence.

Key SEO / LLM keywords: Verification Program Director, V&V, verification strategy, validation, test automation, systems verification, compliance, traceability, verification lifecycle, regulatory certification.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Senior Verification Engineer with cross-functional testing leadership
Systems Engineering Lead focusing on integration and verification
Program Manager for software or hardware verification projects

Advancement To:

Head of Verification & Validation
Director of Quality and Compliance
VP of Engineering / Chief Technology Officer (in technology-centric firms)

Lateral Moves:

Product Program Director (product delivery & quality)
Certification Program Manager (regulatory / safety certification)
Technical Program Manager, Systems Integration

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Define and own the end-to-end verification and validation strategy for multiple concurrent programs, including test scope, acceptance criteria, verification milestones, and exit criteria aligned to product roadmaps and regulatory requirements.
Develop comprehensive verification plans that map requirements to test cases, define traceability matrices, and ensure full requirements coverage through system, integration, hardware, and software verification activities.
Establish and maintain scalable test architectures and infrastructures, including automated test frameworks, CI/CD test pipelines, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and software-in-the-loop (SIL) environments, and cloud-based test execution to support continuous verification.
Lead and mentor a multidisciplinary verification organization (engineers, test automation, test architects, technicians), setting objectives, hiring roadmaps, career development plans, and performance goals to build a high-performing V&V team.
Own verification program budgets, resource allocation, contract management with external test labs and suppliers, and procurement of specialized test equipment and software licenses to meet program timelines and quality requirements.
Collaborate tightly with product management, systems engineering, software and hardware engineering, manufacturing, reliability, and quality teams to integrate verification activities into release planning and to minimize rework and integration risk.
Drive automated regression test strategy and implementation to reduce manual test effort, accelerate iteration cadence, and provide deterministic verification coverage that supports rapid release cycles.
Define and enforce verification processes, standards, templates, and metrics (test coverage, pass/fail rates, defect density, verification velocity) to provide transparency and measurable progress to executives and stakeholders.
Ensure robust requirements management and traceability by integrating verification artifacts into requirements management tools, enabling auditability for internal reviews, customer audits, and regulatory certification.
Design and execute verification risk mitigation plans for high-risk features and safety-critical functions, including hazard analysis, fault injection, stress tests, and reliability growth campaigns.
Lead cross-functional verification test campaigns for system integration, acceptance testing, field testing, and pre-production validation with clear success criteria and documented outcomes.
Represent verification status and technical trade-offs to executive leadership and customers, providing clear, data-driven recommendations to inform go/no-go release decisions and certification readiness.
Coordinate with regulatory, certification, and compliance teams to ensure verification artifacts meet standards such as DO-178C, ISO 26262, IEC 61508, FDA 21 CFR Part 11, or other domain-specific regulations as required.
Oversee defect triage and root cause analysis processes, ensuring timely resolution, verification of fixes, and lessons-learned incorporation into verification plans to prevent repeat failures.
Implement and champion metrics-driven continuous improvement of verification processes, tooling, and team workflows to increase effectiveness and reduce verification cycle time.
Manage third-party verification contracts and supplier test activities, including statement-of-work definition, performance oversight, and integration of external test results into program evidence repositories.
Establish and maintain a centralized verification evidence repository, ensuring artifacts (test plans, procedures, logs, results, traceability matrices) are organized, version-controlled, and accessible for audits and post-release investigations.
Plan and execute large-scale system verification events (alpha/beta programs, pilot deployments, staged rollouts), coordinating logistics, test resources, and risk controls to validate real-world performance.
Drive data collection and analytics from test runs and field telemetry to inform verification focus areas, identify latent defects, and prioritize critical test cases for automation or extended validation.
Advocate and operationalize best practices for test design, test data management, simulation-based verification, model-based testing, and verification reuse across product lines to increase consistency and reduce duplication.
Partner with security and privacy teams to ensure verification programs include penetration testing, fuzzing, and abuse-case validation for product hardening and certification of security controls.
Lead forensic verification and incident investigation activities for critical field issues, coordinating cross-functional debugging, corrective action plans, and retroactive verification to close root causes.
Maintain a strong emphasis on safety, quality, and compliance by integrating verification checkpoints into development lifecycles (V-model, Agile-Scrum with gated verification) to ensure alignment with release controls and audit readiness.
Drive stakeholder engagement and communication plans for verification milestones, producing clear dashboards, verification reports, and executive summaries that succinctly convey readiness and risk posture.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Provide subject-matter expertise for proposals, customer meetings, and certification packages requiring V&V evidence.
Facilitate verification-focused workshops and training to raise organizational capability in test design and automation practices.
Maintain vendor relationships for calibration, lab services, and specialized test tooling; evaluate new tools and technologies for adoption.
Provide input to product risk assessments and contribute verification perspective to product change control boards.
Curate and communicate verification best practices, templates, and reusable test assets to accelerate program onboarding.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Verification & Validation (V&V) program leadership: designing and operating enterprise verification programs that span system, integration, hardware, and software testing.
Test strategy and plan development: ability to create requirement-driven verification plans, traceability matrices, and formal test artifacts suitable for audits and certifications.
Test automation frameworks and CI/CD integration: hands-on experience with automated test frameworks, scripting (Python, Bash, Tcl), and continuous integration systems (Jenkins, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps).
Systems engineering and requirements management: proficiency with DOORS, Jama, Polarion, or equivalent tools and strong requirement-to-test mapping discipline.
Simulation, SIL/HIL, and lab infrastructure: experience building and operating Software-in-the-Loop, Hardware-in-the-Loop, and automated test harnesses.
Domain regulatory standards and certification knowledge: working familiarity with DO-178C, ISO 26262, IEC 61508, FDA processes, or other industry-specific compliance frameworks.
Test tools and ALM: practical use of test management and ALM tools (TestRail, Zephyr, qTest), issue trackers (JIRA), and version control systems (Git).
Performance, stress, and reliability testing: design and execution of large-scale performance and endurance test campaigns and associated tooling.
Data analysis and telemetry: ability to analyze test and field telemetry (SQL, Python/pandas), derive insights, and close verification gaps.
Hardware test lab and instrumentation: knowledge of lab equipment (oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, RF test gear) and automated data capture methods.
Security testing practices: experience with penetration testing, fuzz testing, and integrating security verification into the V&V lifecycle.
Risk management and root cause analysis: FMEA, fault-tree analysis, RCA, and corrective/preventive action processes.
Cloud and virtualization for test environments: experience leveraging cloud-based test infrastructure and virtualization for scalable test execution.
Test metrics and dashboards: ability to define, collect, and present verification KPIs to leadership and stakeholders.
Supplier and third-party test coordination: negotiating Statements of Work and integrating external lab results into program evidence.

Soft Skills

Strategic leadership and vision: ability to set long-term verification strategy and align cross-functional teams around shared objectives.
Strong communication and storytelling: present complex technical verification status and trade-offs clearly to executives, customers, and regulatory bodies.
Stakeholder management and influence: manage expectations and negotiate trade-offs across engineering, product, certification, and operations organizations.
Team building and mentorship: recruit, retain, coach, and scale verification teams with a focus on career development.
Project and program management: prioritize work, manage dependencies, and deliver verification milestones on schedule and on budget.
Decision-making under uncertainty: rapidly assess verification risk and recommend pragmatic mitigations to keep programs moving.
Problem-solving and analytical thinking: lead root-cause investigations and drive corrective actions that sustainably improve product quality.
Collaboration and cross-functional facilitation: run multidisciplinary test campaigns and workshops to break down silos and improve verification throughput.
Attention to detail and documentation discipline: ensure verification artifacts are complete, auditable, and reproducible.
Continuous improvement mindset: drive process and tooling enhancements to increase verification effectiveness and lower cycle time.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Systems Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or related technical field.

Preferred Education:

Master’s degree in Systems Engineering, Engineering Management, Computer Science, or equivalent technical discipline.
Professional certifications in systems engineering, project/program management (PMP, PgMP), or domain-specific certifications where applicable.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Systems Engineering
Electrical / Electronics Engineering
Computer Science / Software Engineering
Mechanical / Aerospace Engineering
Engineering Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 10–15+ years of engineering experience with at least 5–8 years focused on verification and validation and 3–5+ years in a leadership role.

Preferred:

Demonstrated experience leading large-scale V&V programs across hardware and software domains for complex products (embedded systems, aerospace, automotive, medical devices, telecom).
Proven track record delivering products through regulatory certification or safety approvals, with a deep understanding of required artifacts and audit expectations.
Experience implementing test automation at scale and integrating verification into Agile/DevOps development lifecycles.
Prior P&L or budget ownership for verification activities, along with vendor management and lab operations oversight.