QA Engineer - Connected Vehicle - USC

Job Title : UAT Test Engineer Connected Car (Kia U.S.)

Location: Irvine, CA (Hybrid: 2 3 days onsite)

Travel: ~10 20% for field/drive tests, dealer/pilot visits, and vendor lab sessions.

Employment Type : Contract 6/12 months with potential extension

Rate; DOE

About the Team

Kia s U.S. Connected Car team delivers telemetry, remote services, in-vehicle infotainment integrations, mobile app experiences (Kia Access), OTA updates, and connected services platform features. We partner with engineering, product, operations, and suppliers to bring safe, reliable, and delightful connected experiences to Kia customers.

Role Summary

As a UAT Test Engineer, you will lead endtoend User Acceptance Testing for connected car features spanning vehicle, TCU/infotainment, mobile apps, cloud services, data pipelines, and dealer/field workflows. You ll translate business scenarios into testable acceptance criteria, orchestrate UAT cycles with stakeholders, execute and document tests, triage defects, validate fixes, and sign off readiness for pilot, phased rollout, and general availability.

You are hands-on with mobile app and API validation, comfortable in vehicle/bench environments, and adept at coordinating business users to ensure features meet real-world expectations not just pass lab tests.

Key Responsibilities

• UAT Planning & Readiness

Convert business requirements, epics, and UX flows into UAT scope, entry/exit criteria, and traceability (Req Test Defect).

Define UAT test plans, data needs, environment needs, and UAT runbooks across mobile, cloud, and invehicle systems.

Align with Product, Engineering, SRE/Operations, Legal/Compliance, and Dealer/Field Ops on acceptance criteria.

• Test Design & Execution

Author endtoend UAT scenarios (happy paths, edge cases, degraded modes, error handling) using BDD/Gherkin where helpful.

Execute tests across iOS/Android apps, web portals, APIs (Postman), vehicle bench/TCU simulators, and onroad drive tests.

Validate remote services (lock/unlock, start/stop, climate), live telemetry (location, status), OTA campaigns, and infotainment integrations.

Perform API/UI/Push notification validation, latency and reliability checks, and data consistency checks (device cloud vehicle).

• Defect Triage & Signoff

Log, reproduce, and triage defects; prioritize with severity/business impact; drive fix/verify cycles to closure.

Manage UAT status dashboards, daily standups, and go/no-go recommendations.

Provide UAT signoff for pilots and staged rollouts; support hypercare post-release.

• Field, Dealer & Pilot Support

Coordinate beta/pilot users, dealer staff, and internal business testers; provide training and UAT guidance.

Conduct field validations for network variability (urban/suburban/rural), CAN data presence, GPS performance, and carrier differences.

Support telemetry/data validation via logs and dashboards (e.g., Splunk/Kibana/Grafana).

• Quality & Compliance

Ensure adherence to privacy and data standards (e.g., CCPA), cybersecurity posture (UNECE R155), and OTA update processes (UNECE R156).

Align with ASPICE and ISO 26262 interfaces where applicable (for safetyrelevant features).

• Continuous Improvement

Drive test data management (seeding/masking), environment stabilization, and shiftleft practices.

Capture lessons learned, UAT playbooks, and reusable test libraries for future releases.

Required Qualifications

• 5 6+ years in QA/UAT with at least 3+ years in connected vehicle, telematics, mobile apps, or IoT platforms.
• Strong endtoend testing experience covering mobile apps (iOS/Android), REST APIs, and cloudbacked services.
• Handson with Postman/Swagger, , device logs (adb, Xcode/Console), and push notification validation.
• Experience with vehicle or bench testing: basic familiarity with CAN, OBDII, telematics control units, GPS/gnss behavior, or use of simulators for TCU/app flows.
• Proficiency with Jira + test management (e.g., TestRail)strong requirements traceability and documentation.
• Solid defect triage, reproduction, and crossteam communication skills; comfort presenting go/nogo recommendations to leadership.
• Ability to operate in ambiguous, fastmoving programs with multiple vendors and release trains.

Preferred Qualifications

• Automotive domain knowledge: remote commands, vehicle status, OTA campaign validation, infotainment integrations, charging/EV features.
• Tools exposure: Vector CANoe/CANalyzer, ETAS INCA, GPS spoofing tools, ELK, LMS, Grafana, App Center/TestFlight/Play Console.
• Handsons on SQL
• Experience coordinating dealer pilots and customer beta programs; NPS/CSAT feedback loops.
• Familiarity with CI/CD concepts, feature flags, bluegreen/canary rollouts.
• Ability to support Vehicle audits

Success Metrics (KPIs)

• UAT Pass Rate and Defect Leakage to production.
• Requirements Coverage (% of business scenarios validated).
• Cycle Time (UAT execution to signoff) and TimetoFix for high severity defects.
• Pilot/Dealer Feedback (NPS/CSAT), stability during hypercare.
• Data Integrity across app cloud vehicle (e.g., event correctness, latency thresholds).

DaytoDay Tools

• Issue/Test: Jira, TestRail/Zephyr/qTest, Confluence
• APIs/Debug: Postman,
• Data/Logs: Grafana, LMS, ELK SQL basics
• Vehicle/Bench: Vector CANoe/CANalyzer (nice to have), OBDII readers, GPS tools
• Mobile: iOS/Android test devices, App Center/TestFlight/Play Console