Test & Validation Engineer

The Leidos Health & Civil Sector is seeking a Test & Validation Engineer Lead to support the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Cancer Institute (NCI).

** This posting is for future business – not yet awarded **

The Test and Validation Lead will establish and manage the program's quality engineering strategy to ensure systems meet functional, performance, security, interoperability, accessibility, and regulatory requirements while supporting NCI's mission of advancing cancer research.

Working closely with the Program Manager, Technical Lead, Software Engineering Lead, Government stakeholders, and technical Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), the Test and Validation Lead will develop comprehensive validation strategies that integrate quality throughout the system development lifecycle. The successful candidate will lead multidisciplinary testing teams and promote modern quality engineering practices that support Agile delivery, DevSecOps, and continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD).

Key Responsibilities

• Lead all verification, validation, and quality engineering activities across enterprise applications, cloud platforms, AI/ML solutions, and biomedical informatics systems.
• Develop and maintain the program's Test and Evaluation Master Plan (TEMP), Validation Strategy, Quality Management Plan, and automated testing framework.
• Define test strategies, acceptance criteria, and validation methodologies for functional, integration, system, regression, performance, security, usability, interoperability, and user acceptance testing.
• Collaborate with Government stakeholders, business analysts, software engineers, AI/ML engineers, and SMEs to ensure requirements are fully testable and traceable from design through deployment.
• Oversee automated testing using CI/CD pipelines and DevSecOps practices to improve software quality and release efficiency.
• Lead validation of AI and machine learning solutions, including model verification, performance evaluation, explainability, bias assessment, reproducibility, drift monitoring, and ongoing model quality.
• Ensure software and AI systems comply with NIH, HHS, NIST, Section 508, privacy, cybersecurity, and applicable federal quality standards.
• Direct defect management, root cause analysis, corrective actions, and continuous quality improvement initiatives.
• Develop quality metrics, dashboards, and executive reports to communicate testing progress, release readiness, and overall system quality to Government leadership.
• Mentor quality engineers and foster a culture of continuous improvement, automation, and engineering excellence.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field. Master's degree preferred.
• Eight (8) or more years of progressively responsible experience relevant to the position.
• Demonstrated experience supporting NIH, HHS, CMS, or other Federal civilian agencies.
• Experience supporting large Federal IT modernization or systems integration programs.
• Experience implementing automated testing frameworks and integrating quality engineering into Agile and DevSecOps environments.
• Experience working in Agile development environments and with DevSecOps practices.
• Strong understanding of software quality assurance methodologies, requirements traceability, risk-based testing, and defect lifecycle management.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to obtain and maintain required Federal suitability or security requirements.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust / ADPII Clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Microsoft Azure, Azure DevOps, Kubernetes, REST APIs, Git, CI/CD, and cloud-native architectures.
• Knowledge of Section 508, NIST guidance, FISMA, and Zero Trust principles.
• Relevant professional certifications appropriate to the role (e.g., PMP, Scrum, AWS/Azure, Security+, ISTQB).

Desired Characteristics

• Strong customer focus and mission orientation.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to lead cross-functional teams in a collaborative environment.
• Commitment to quality, innovation, and continuous process improvement.
• Ability to communicate effectively with both technical and executive audiences.

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting:

For U.S. Positions: While subject to change based on business needs, Leidos reasonably anticipates that this job requisition will remain open for at least 3 days with an anticipated close date of no earlier than 3 days after the original posting date as listed above.

Pay Range:

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.