V&V Engineering Team Leader

Are you someone who is passionate, motivated, and driven to make a difference? If so, MSA Safety is the perfect fit for your career.

At MSA, SAFETY is who we are AND it is what we do. We are a purpose-driven company committed to deploying innovation and technology to deliver on our Mission to help protect people and assets all around the world. We continue to be relentless in our pursuit of solving our customers greatest problems so they can go home safe each and every day.

Are you in? Read on for more details about this particular role.

MSA Safety’s Verification and Validation (V&V) engineering team is seeking a technically strong, inquisitive, and people‑focused Team Lead with a passion for product quality and continuous improvement. This role balances hands‑on technical leadership with people management , driving quality strategy, test automation, and process excellence across the development lifecycle.

As a Verification & Validation Team Lead, you will guide a technical team of Fire Service V&V associates, while actively contributing to test strategy, system validation, and cross functional collaboration. You will play a key role in ensuring high‑quality, reliable solutions supporting life‑saving Fire Service products.

What you bring

• Desire for meaningful work, creating excellent products that keep workers safe
• Ability to balance technical acumen with project management and team leadership
• Aspiration to be a servant leader, with your mindset one of personal, team and company growth
• Ability to foster a productive environment through communication, decision making, empathy and empowerment
• Building trust and fulfilling commitments are key contributors to your success
• Ability to prioritize and make decisions in the face of ambiguity
• Being a mentor and a mentee are equally important to you
• Ability to balance strategic thinking with hands‑on execution
• Analytical mindset with attention to detail and a system‑level perspective
• Excellent communication skills, effective in collaborating across disciplines

What we offer

• Opportunity to lead quality efforts on mission‑critical, life-saving products
• Collaborative, engineering driven culture with a strong focus on quality
• A role with both technical depth and leadership responsibility
• Professional growth through mentoring, leadership development, and cross team engagement
• Empowerment to innovate, and be creative in meeting our goals efficiently
• Flexible environment with stability, providing challenging, innovative work while maintaining work/life balance

Responsibilities

• Lead a small team of cross functional technical staff within the Verification and Validation organization
• Coach and mentor team members, providing technical guidance, process direction, and performance feedback
• Actively support associates’ development
• Empower the team, remove obstacles, and ensure deliverables are met on time and to quality expectations
• Maintain visibility into the state of all supported projects, providing transparent communication to stakeholders
• Collaborate closely with developers, product managers, and engineering leaders to clarify requirements, identify risks, and report quality metrics
• Develop, review, and maintain test strategies and test plans for system‑level and component‑level coverage
• Coordinate quality activities across multiple development teams and technical domains
• Support improvements in test automation, tools, and development processes
• Leverage data and metrics to assess team performance and guide targeted improvements
• Depending on experience, may develop test automation solutions, software simulators, tools, and prototypes
• Participate in automated and manual software and product testing and debugging efforts as required
• Participate in the recruiting process
• Up to 10% domestic/international travel may be required.

Qualifications

Experience and Skills Required

• Leadership, organizational and influencing skills
• Attentive listener and confident decision maker
• Strong technical aptitude and relevant technical experience
• Familiarity with testing methodologies, and approaches
• Demonstrated passion for software/product quality
• Strong desire for learning and continuous improvement
• Strong communications skills, desire to work in a global, multi-cultural team

Experience and Skills Preferred

• Formal or informal team or technical leadership
• Software development experience, ideally in an embedded or IoT environment
• Understanding of the Software Development Life Cycle
• Experience with version control, issue tracking and CI/CD tools
• Previous testing experience
• Python development experience
• Familiarity with industry standard wired and wireless protocols
• Comfortable with software and hardware debugging tools (debuggers, oscilloscopes, network analyzers etc.)

Education and Experience Required:

• Bachelor’s Degree in an engineering related discipline from an ABET-accredited program
• ISTQB or relevant quality/test focused certification is a plus
• This position is available at different career levels based on education and experience

• Engineering Team Lead I – minimum 7 years of relevant engineering experience
• Engineering Team Lead II – minimum 8 years of relevant engineering experience
• Engineering Team Lead III – minimum 10 years of relevant engineering experience including a minimum of 2 years experience in direct staff management.

MS degree in a relevant field of study may be substituted for up to 2 years of engineering experience.