Sr. Manager, Test & Development Engineering

As a Senior Manager for Test and Development, you will manage a team that performs full vehicle and sub-system development and validation testing, both on-site at Rivian’s Arizona Proving Grounds, and at other remote sites worldwide. Your team supports multiple focused development, support and validation testing areas; including Dynamics, Benchmarking, Powertrain, NVH, Body Controls, Chassis Durability, Homologation and others from the beginning of a program through production launch.

• Manage team workload, scheduling and budget; including resource allocations covering vehicles, staff, instrumentation, track scheduling and offsite logistics.

• Coordinate with facility and on-site staff to ensure available resources (surfaces, facilities, etc.) are aligned to team needs and are meeting usability requirements.

• Collaborate with Program, Fleet and domain / department teams to plan and optimize vehicle usage across limited assets. Advocate for priority where required to meet test timing.

• Manage team resources to support early program system and vehicle integration bring-up, development and troubleshooting across multiple concurrent vehicle model lines and maturity timelines, for both the T&D team and other end-users.

• Supervise team planning, preparation, execution and documentation of specific portions of the vehicle and component DVP&R using JIRA, FLOW, and Rivian proprietary tool sets.

• Support asynchronous onsite and offsite test and validation activities, including field quality investigations, pre-production and post-production software quality testing, supplier and VIP visits and demonstrations, among others.

• Develop and refine reporting and tracking tools to continually improve overall department and team efficiency; focusing on integration of emerging AI applications and in-vehicle utilities.

• Create and modify documentation including test work instructions, Rivian test specifications, and summary reports from vehicle testing projects.

• Perform subjective and objective evaluations in one or more areas of personal expertise for remote design and engineering teams. Travel as needed (up to 25%) to support prototype vehicles, remote validation events, environmental testing, proving-ground activity, and other high-urgency support work

• Team first mentality - as a multi-team manager in a highly cross-functional support role, you must be able to balance conflicting customer requests with team capabilities, develop and articulate timing plans and progress to stakeholders, all while growing a positive team culture.

• Hands-on engineering capability across multiple vehicle systems, electrical integration, prototype hardware, and software-enabled development work, testing methods and instrumentation methodologies.

• Experience and proven success operating within dynamic development timeline environments where rapid problem solving, self-direction, and results-driven flexibility are paramount.

• Familiarity with Jira / Confluence workflows and documenting technical work clearly enough for cross-functional follow-through.

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Software, Mechatronics, Aerospace, or similar engineering discipline.

• 10+ years of automotive prototype, vehicle integration, validation testing and/or development engineering experience required.