Senior Virtual Test Engineer

Worldwide, the Volkswagen Group has a long tradition of dramatic innovations. The Volkswagen Group with its headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany is one of the world’s leading automobile manufacturers and the largest carmaker in Europe. The Group comprises twelve brands from seven European countries: Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Audi, SEAT, ŠKODA, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Ducati, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Scania and MAN.

Brief Role Description

At the Innovation & Engineering Center California (IECC), we represent the Volkswagen Group in applied research and development. Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, we create bold new ideas for the Volkswagen, Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, Bugatti and Porsche brands. We’re a team of engineers, designers, scientists, and psychologists looking to develop innovations for future generations of cars, and to transfer technologies from many industries and research institutions into the automotive domain. Our mission is to drive change which means we are not only impacting one of the world’s largest car makers, but also the lives of millions of people. Are you ready to join us?

 

Senior Virtual Test Engineer

Role Summary

• The Virtual Test Engineer will own the end‑to‑end test engineering for virtual ECUs—from V‑ECU creation (AUTOSAR Classic/Adaptive) and restbus/environment modeling, to deterministic simulation, fault injection, conformance, diagnostics/flash, and scalable CI execution. You will build and operate a virtual test platform that exercises production software stacks (communication, diagnostics, safety/security, OTA readiness) with measurable coverage and release‑grade. You partner with software, systems, safety, cybersecurity, HIL, and OTA teams to ensure the virtual pipeline finds defects earlier than HIL/vehicle, at fleet scale.
• The position will be a member of the worldwide connectivity technical team and interfaces with multiple stakeholders of VW Group’s technical team members. This position investigates and develops new architectures for connected systems targeted to the US market.

Role Responsibilities

Operational Management - (35%)

• Ownership of Virtual Test topics in NAR markets
• Own the relationship with network operator, contract manufacturer, platform provider and lead strategic discussions and technical negotiations.
• Serve as technical authority for V‑ECU testing; mentor engineers in XiL best practices, determinism, and modeling trade‑offs.
• Drive supplier alignment (Tier‑1/2) for virtual deliverables (V‑ECU packages, ARXML/ODX/OTX, service catalogs, security plugins).
• Conduct design/test reviews, DFMEA/FMEA, and lead 8D on defects discovered in SIL with crisp reproduction artifacts.

 

V‑ECU Build & Simulation Architecture – (35%)

• Define the V‑ECU generation strategy for AUTOSAR Classic (RTE + BSW abstraction, virtual MCAL stubs) and Adaptive (POSIX targets, ara::com SOME/IP bindings), including OS abstraction, timers, time‑warp, and determinism controls.
• Select and integrate V‑ECU platforms (e.g., dSPACE VEOS/SystemDesk, Vector vVIRTUALtarget/CANoe4SW Server, ETAS COSYM/ASCET, AVL VIRTUAL TESTBED, Wind River Simics, Imperas/OVPsim, QEMU/Renode‑based flows) and manage tool qualification where applicable.
• Establish co‑simulation topologies: MIL/Plant models (Simulink/Modelica/FMU/FMI), bus/network simulators, and virtualization of sensors/actuators with IO semantics and timing fidelity.

 

Communication, Diagnostics & Flashing in SIL – (10%)

• Model and validate Automotive Ethernet stacks: SOME/IP & SOME/IP‑SD, DoIP, AVB/TSN where applicable; simulate VLAN/QoS and congestion scenarios.
• Exercise CAN/CAN‑FD, LIN, FlexRay via restbus simulations; verify UDS services, ISO‑TP segmentation and XCP/CCP measurement/calibration flows.
• Implement DoIP‑routed UDS flashing in SIL with eligibility/state checks, A/B or recovery slots, anti‑rollback, and bootloader handshake emulation (timings, NRCs).

Virtual Environment & Restbus Modeling – (10%)

• Develop restbus models for gateways, sensors, actuators, and peer ECUs using Vector CANoe/CAPL (incl. CANoe4SW Server), Python, and co‑simulation bridges.
• Build service catalogs and SOME/IP service mocks, including late‑joiner/re‑announce behaviors and instance collision tests; emulate SecOC/E2E protections.
• Create plant models (Simulink/Modelica, FMU/FMI) for closed‑loop testing of control functions; parameterize with production DBC/ARXML/LDF.

Robustness, Fault Injection & Fuzzi