Verification & Validation; V&V) Discipline Lead

We're building the UK's next generation engineering powerhouse, providing critical technology that strengthens national security and resilience.

We specialise in turning advances in sensing, AI, and communications into operational capability for the edge, where connectivity may be degraded or denied. Our work focuses on accelerating the deployment of technology, improving decision-making for frontline teams, and protecting people and critical assets in demanding environments.

Headquartered in Bristol, Rowden employs around 200 people and operates over 20,000 square feet of engineering and manufacturing facilities. We have a growing international footprint and are one of Europe's fastest-growing engineering businesses.

Rowden already has an excellent systems engineering team, and we already integrate, test and verify complex edge systems. However, the scale, pace and complexity of what we need to prove is changing, and with it our demand for a rigorous, end-to-end verification & validation (V&V) capability.

Our systems bring together software, compute, networks, radios, sensors, user devices and increasingly autonomous behaviour. They have to work across denied, degraded, intermittent and low bandwidth networks, where system behaviour shifts as connectivity and available resources shift. Right now, too much of our evidence that a system works comes from late, bespoke, one-off test campaigns rather than a coherent V&V strategy applied from the start.

It is often manual and hard to reuse, which slows everyone down and leaves gaps between what we've proven and what we've assumed.

So, we are investing properly in V&V, and we're looking for the person to own it. V&V is the broader discipline: deciding, for every requirement and every stakeholder need, what evidence is needed and how best to get it, whether that's test, analysis, inspection, demonstration, modelling or simulation. System Integration & Test (SI&T) is one of the most important execution capabilities within that discipline, and will sit within your remit: building the reusable test and evaluation infrastructure, integrating real systems, and proving they work under realistic conditions.

The goal is a world-leading V&V capability for edge information systems, built on reusable methods and infrastructure rather than one-off rigs, so we can verify and validate earlier, far more often, and with evidence we can trust.

Executed well, this will significantly speed up the time it takes to get technology into users' hands - and give us confidence it will actually work for them when it gets there.

Candidates must be eligible for SC clearance.

More information about security clearance is available here:

Someone to own V&V as a discipline, including the System Integration & Test (SI&T) capability that sits within it. Working with others in the Engineering team (Head of Systems, VP Engineering), you will set the technical vision for your area, decide where to focus effort, grow the people, and build the methods, tooling and environments that let projects move faster with real confidence in the evidence behind them.

You need to understand verification and validation deeply enough to know what good looks like across the full range of methods, not just testing, and be excited about designing and evolving a capability, rather than only operating a process. You will also stay close to the work - expect to be technically hands-on, working alongside teams rather than only directing them.

Current titles and years of experience matter less to us than what you can do.

• Own V&V as a discipline, including SI&T: set the technical vision, decide where to focus investment, and define what good verification and validation look like at Rowden.
• Define the Rowden V&V strategy for complex, multi-disciplinary systems: for each requirement and stakeholder need, ensure the team understand the right methods - test, analysis, inspection, demonstration, modelling or simulation and ensure evidence is proportionate, timely and trustworthy.
• Own and grow our System Integration & Test capability as the primary execution arm of V&V: build and evolve reusable test and evaluation infrastructure that works across projects, replacing bespoke, one-off rigs.
• Build and grow the team, bringing in and developing the people needed to deliver the capability.
• Develop the Rowden standard approach for V&V design and execution across the lifecycle, to be utilised across…