Digital Thread Test Lead

The Digital Thread Systems team, within our Chief Information Office (CIO) and reporting through the Digital sector, is seeking a Test Lead to help scale Leidos manufacturing for the future by modernizing the systems, integrations, and infrastructure that connect product development to product realization. Our team enables the digital thread that moves critical product and manufacturing information across engineering, planning, and production – helping teams turn product designs into producible, deliverable solutions.

In this role you will provide enterprise-level test leadership across the systems and integrations that enable the digital thread, including PLM, MES, ERP, enterprise integrations, and reporting capabilities. This role owns the end-to-end testing strategy and lifecycle across concurrent technology initiatives, ensuring system functionality, integration integrity, quality, and readiness for production release. You will establish testing standards, coordinate multidisciplinary test teams and stakeholders, and provide clear assessments of release readiness and risk. The role also drives continuous improvement of testing methodologies, tools, automation, and emerging capabilities such as artificial intelligence.

Location: This position allows for full-time telework from any U.S. based location.

Citizenship: U.S. Citizenship is required.

Primary Responsibilities

Test Strategy & Planning

• Develop and maintain comprehensive test strategies, plans, procedures, schedules, and success criteria across digital thread initiatives.
• Define test scope and approaches for component, system, integration, regression, smoke, and user acceptance testing.
• Translate functional and technical requirements into traceable test cases and acceptance criteria.
• Establish and maintain enterprise testing standards, processes, templates, and governance.
• Coordinate with project, functional, technical, infrastructure, cybersecurity, supplier, and business teams to ensure test readiness.

Test Execution & Release Readiness

• Lead and coordinate testing across PLM, MES, ERP, integration, reporting, and related digital thread capabilities.
• Oversee test execution and ensure adherence to approved plans, procedures, requirements, and acceptance criteria.
• Coordinate tester assignments, responsibilities, access, environments, test data, and prerequisite activities.
• Manage defect identification, documentation, prioritization, retesting, and closure in coordination with technical and functional teams.
• Assess test results, unresolved defects, and associated risks to provide recommendations regarding release readiness.
• Ensure test evidence and results are complete, accurate, traceable, and appropriately retained.

Reporting & Stakeholder Communication

• Develop and present test status, results, risks, defects, and readiness assessments to program leadership and stakeholders.
• Communicate complex technical findings effectively to technical, business, and executive audiences.
• Conduct post-test reviews, debriefs, and lessons-learned activities.

Continuous Improvement

• Analyze testing results and defect trends to identify systemic issues and opportunities for improvement.
• Refine testing methodologies, processes, tools, metrics, and automation based on lessons learned and industry practices.
• Evaluate and support responsible integration of artificial intelligence and automation into testing processes.

Basic Qualifications

• U.S. Citizenship is required.
• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a related discipline with 12–15 years of relevant experience; or Master's degree with 10–13 years of relevant experience. Additional relevant experience may be considered in lieu of a degree where permitted by the applicable job profile.
• Significant experience developing and executing test strategies and test plans for complex enterprise applications or integrated systems.
• Experience leading system, integration, regression, user acceptance, and release-readiness testing.
• Demonstrated experience managing requirements-to-test traceability, defects, test evidence, and acceptance criteria.
• Experience coordinating testing across multidisciplinary technical, functional, supplier, and business teams.
• Ability to analyze complex system behavior, integration dependencies, and defects spanning multiple applications.
• Demonstrated ability to communicate technical risks, results, and recommendations to senior and executive leadership.
• Experience leading technical work across multiple concurrent projects or programs.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience testing Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), ERP, or integrated manufacturing and engineering systems.
• Experience with iBase-t Solumina MES, PTC Windchill PLM, Deltek Costpoint ERP, eQube-MI, or eQube-BI.
• Experience validating end-to-end transactions and data flows across PLM, MES, ERP, and middleware platforms.
• Working knowledge of SQL Server, Oracle, SQL querying, relational databases, and enterprise data structures.
• Experience with automated testing frameworks, test management platforms, and requirements management tools.
• Experience applying artificial intelligence or intelligent automation to software testing and quality assurance.
• Experience supporting aerospace, defense, regulated manufacturing, or other mission-critical environments.

If you are selected for interview:

***Please be advised that during the interview, you will be required to keep your camera on, and your interviewer will be taking your picture for identification purposes if an offer letter is extended to you***

About Leidos
At Leidos, we deliver innovative solutions through the efforts of our diverse and talented people who are dedicated to our customers’ success. We empower our teams, contribute to our communities, and operate sustainably. Everything we do is built on a commitment to do the right thing for our customers, our people, and our community. Our Mission, Vision, and Values guide the way we do business.

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:

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.