Principal Engineering Manager

As a Senior Manager for Test Engineering, you will lead technical areas and the managers and senior leads who run them. You are accountable for the performance, delivery, and health of those teams, and for one plan tied to company objectives. The job is people leadership, priority and resource decisions, and cross-functional alignment on a three-to-six-month horizon. Area leads own day-to-day technical execution.

You set direction, clear obstacles, and hold the organization to safe, high-quality results.

• Lead the managers and senior individual contributors responsible for the five Test Engineering areas. Set expectations, give timely feedback, and run performance reviews.
• Coach those leaders so they can develop their own people. Support development goals and name stretch opportunities early.
• Address performance issues in partnership with HR, and handle difficult conversations directly.
• Own talent planning for the organization: hiring, onboarding, retention of critical knowledge, skill gaps, and backup coverage, with your manager and HR.
• Recommend compensation, merit, and promotions for your teams.
• Build an engaged team. Recognize results, and communicate a clear view of what the organization is here to do.

• Set goals across all areas that roll up to company and department objectives, and follow them through to results.
• Plan and lead delivery on a three-to-six-month horizon. Reset plans and priorities when headcount, scope, or operations change.
• Keep several strategic and tactical efforts moving at once, pointed at the same organizational objectives.
• Run an operating rhythm that shows status, risk, and roadblocks across all areas.
• Guide teams on how to remove blockers, and elevate when the decision sits above the team.
• Use company policy to make decisions. Bring Legal, HR, or Procurement in when a question needs their guidance.
• Manage change and the stakeholders affected by it.

• Align goals across all areas so Test Engineering works as one organization, with company outcomes ahead of any single area.
• Partner with Product, Software Engineering, Safety, and adjacent functions on priorities, quality risk, and release readiness.
• Resolve complex or loosely defined cross-functional issues that span process, systems, and working relationships.
• Represent Test Engineering to senior and executive leadership: status, risk, and the decisions you need from them. Communicate company, department, and team context to your own organization without waiting to be asked.

• Provide enough technical guidance to set priorities, judge plans, and advise teams on execution. The expected depth is equivalent to a strong individual contributor in the discipline, applied through your leads.
• Make sure important test approaches and designs are reviewed by the right experts before teams commit, and steer improvements when plans are thin or still ambiguous.
• Area leads own frameworks, automation, test architecture, and day-to-day technical decisions.

• All areas deliver against shared objectives on a three-to-six-month horizon.
• Leaders under you coach their teams, address performance, and keep critical skills in the organization.
• Stakeholders hear one Test Engineering position on priorities, risk, and readiness.
• Quality issues surface early, have an owner, and get resolved through the right team.

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Proven experience managing engineering teams, including experience managing other managers or senior leads.
• A track record of owning team results, headcount and priority…