System Test Lead

Who we are:

Glydways is reimagining what public transit can be. We believe that mobility is the gateway to opportunity—connecting people to housing, education, employment, commerce, and care. By making transportation more accessible, affordable, and sustainable, we empower communities to thrive and unlock economic and social prosperity.

Our mission is to revolutionize transit with a solution that delivers high capacity, exceptional user experiences, unmatched affordability, and minimal environmental impact.

The Glydways system is a groundbreaking network of carbon-neutral, interconnected transit pathways powered by standardized autonomous vehicles on dedicated roadways. Operating 24/7 with on-demand access, it offers personalized and efficient mobility—without the burden of heavy upfront infrastructure costs or ongoing taxpayer subsidies.

With Glydways, we’re building more than a transportation system; we’re creating a future where everyone, everywhere, has the freedom to move.

Meet the team:

The Safety, Quality and Compliance (SQC) organization ensures that Glydways Automated Transit Networks are developed, verified, validated, and operated in a way that is demonstrably safe, compliant, and high performing. SQC is organizationally independent from Engineering and Program Management, satisfying CENELEC railway safety standards by clearly separating who designs from who validates. Within SQC, the Verification, Validation & Testing (V&V) team plans, specifies, executes, and reports system level tests that produce formal evidence for the safety case and regulatory acceptance.

Role Overview:

We're looking for a System Test Lead to own and drive all formal system level test campaigns at our development facility and project deployment sites, from system level testing through validation, regression, production acceptance, and commissioning.  You won't just execute test campaigns, you'll lead the test activities, set the standards and be accountable for the quality and completeness of the evidence that goes into the safety case.

You'll build and develop a high performing test organization, make real time decisions on the test track, present test readiness evidence at formal safety gates, and interface directly with the Independent Safety Assessor.

This role is for someone who combines deep technical test expertise with the leadership instinct to drive execution, shape processes, and own outcomes at the program level. You'll sit at the nexus of systems engineering, safety assurance, and test operations, and your actions and judgment will determine whether the system is ready to carry passengers.

Responsibilities:

• On-Site Test Management: Lead and coordinate all formal system level test campaigns at the development facility and project sites, owning the campaign schedule, test coordination, and real time decision making. Manage and develop the test engineering team to build a high performing, standards aware independent test team.
• System Testing: Direct the test planning, test case specification, and execution of formal and independent system test campaigns, including safety-related testing, degraded mode, and emergency scenarios, in coordination with Systems Engineering and Safety. 
• Safety: Own safety of test controls across all dynamic campaigns. Prepare, present, and defend test readiness evidence at TRRs and Internal Safety Milestones. Interface with Independent Safety Assessors on test planning, test results, and defect management. Provide test evidence assessments and recommendations to the System Verifier and System Validator for lifecycle phase closure decisions.
• Governance: Own the formal regression test suite and release gating process, defining coverage criteria, acceptance thresholds, and the pass/fail verdict that determines whether a release proceeds. Govern test configuration baselines and release validation workflows, ensure all formal testing runs against approved, traceable, and reproducible configurations.
• Vehicle Readiness: Own standardized vehicle readiness and end-of-line acceptance test procedures for vehicles entering the GDF2 validation fleet, ensuring they are correctly configured, re-verified after rework, and fully ready for formal dynamic testing.
• Test Documentation: Own safety-related test case specifications and test reports. Govern the requirement verification workflow with full bidirectional traceability. Contribute to the System V&V Plan, providing test strategy and planning inputs. 
• Defect Governance: Own defect classification and tracking for all system level test findings through the EIM process, drive impact analysis, and represent test findings at EIM Review Board sessions.
• Site Commissioning: Lead system level Test and Commissioning (T&C) and Site Acceptance Testing (SAT) at project deployment sites, including interfacing with customers, operators, authorities, and the ISA.
• Test Process and Environment: Own the system level test environment strategy, logging infrastructure, and ensure all formal test tools are qualified. Set the direction for test process maturity, automation strategy, and knowledge management.

Ideal Characteristics:

• A natural leader on the test track and in the review room: equally effective running a multi vehicle dynamic campaign at dawn and presenting release readiness to the ISA that afternoon.
• Builds teams, not just test suites: develops people, creates structure, and instills a culture where rigor and safety awareness are second nature.
• Thinks in systems, acts in evidence: connects subsystem behaviors to system level outcomes and knows what the safety case needs before being asked.
• Owns the big picture without losing the details: manages the full campaign portfolio while knowing exactly which regression test failed on which baseline and why it matters.
• Decisive under pressure: makes real time go/no go calls during dynamic testing with calm, informed judgment.
• Treats independence as a responsibility, not a checkbox: understands that the test organization's credibility depends on objectivity and that findings cannot be diluted by schedule pressure.

Qualifications:

Required:

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field. An advanced engineering degree is a plus. 
• 7+ years of experience in system level testing, system integration testing, or verification and validation for complex hardware/software systems in a safety related domain (rail, automotive, aerospace, robotics, or comparable).
• 3+ years of experience leading or managing test teams, test campaigns, or test programs, including planning, resourcing, and coordinating multi disciplinary test activities.
• Demonstrated experience planning and executing formal test campaigns end to end, including test plan development, test procedure specification, execution, and production of formal test reports with configuration traceability.
• Hands on experience with on track, field, or proving ground testing of integrated systems, comfortable leading test operations in real world environments.
• Strong understanding of defect management, regression testing strategy, and impact analysis.
• Experience with requirements traceability tools (e.g., Jama, DOORS) and maintaining bidirectional traceability from requirements to test cases and test results.
• Strong documentation, communication, and leadership skills, able to produce audit ready reports, lead test teams, and present test status clearly to engineering, management, Independent Safety Assessors, and regulatory stakeholders.

Preferred:

• Experience in rail, people movers, or other transit system testing, including familiarity with EN 50126 lifecycle, EN 50129 safety case expectations, or ASCE 21 requirements.
• Experience with autonomous vehicles, robotics, transit systems, or complex hardware/software integrated products
• Familiarity with safety critical system architectures such as Automatic Train Control (ATC) systems, including ATP, ATO, and ATS layers, fail safe design, SIL allocation) and how they shape test strategy and coverage.
• Experience with system integration testing, Site Acceptance Testing (SAT), and Test & Commissioning (T&C) of transit systems at project deployment sites.
• Experience with HIL, SiL, and simulation based test environments.
• Experience with test automation frameworks (Python, C#, or similar) for regression and CI integrated testing.
• Familiarity with tool qualification concepts for test tools used in safety related evidence production.
• Exposure to RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety) concepts and how system level test campaigns contribute to RAMS demonstration for the safety case.

Please apply, even if you don't meet 100% of the qualifications! We're looking for strong candidates with a great foundation who can also grow on the job.

This is an onsite position in Richmond, CA

The pay range for this position at commencement of employment in California is expected in the range of $200,000-$230,000 USD plus stock options, commensurate with experience.

Glydways provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.