Validation Engineer; Powertrain

Position Overview

As a Staff Validation Engineer at Polaris, you will lead development of powertrain validation that ensures the durability, reliability, and overall quality riders depend on. You’ll work closely with a team deeply rooted in off‑road culture to improve our validation processes, expand our testing capability, and advance earlier use of simulation. You’ll also collaborate across engineering to close gaps and integrate real customer and field insights.

By establishing customer‑use‑driven targets and enhancing our testing strategies, you’ll directly contribute to the dependable experience riders expect from Polaris, making this an exciting role for someone energized by building great products, driving technical excellence, and contributing to a team passionate about powersports.

• Lead creation, ownership, and refinement of the validation portion of DVP&R, ensuring accurate status reporting to program and leadership teams.
• Develop new validation processes, standards, and tools while also improving existing ones to advance organizational capability.
• Identify and close gaps in current validation coverage, correlation, and test methods to better align with customer use and system risk.
• Translate warranty data, field feedback, and customer insights into targeted validation activities and risk‑based test planning.
• Provide design and development teams with customer‑usage‑based targets, duty cycles, and reliability expectations.
• Drive adoption of early‑phase and simulation‑based validation to shorten learning cycles and reduce late discovery.
• Integrate powertrain module validation with full‑vehicle testing and influence cross‑functional decision‑making.
• Guide issue‑resolution activities, including structured root‑cause analysis and systemic corrective actions.
• Lead validation strategy and execution for components and full powertrain modules using data‑driven evaluation of reliability and risk.
• Conduct competitive benchmarking to inform reliability expectations and validation targets.
• Participate in and influence DFMEA activities to ensure validation rigor aligns with system‑level requirements and potential failure modes.
• Mentor engineers and support capability growth within the powertrain validation team.

• Technical / Functional Expertise:
  You apply the required technical or professional knowledge to perform your role effectively and stay current within your area of expertise.
• Critical Thinking:
  You analyze information objectively, evaluate options, and apply sound judgment to solve problems and make informed decisions.
• Collaboration:
  
  You work effectively with others across functions and levels, contributing to shared goals while respecting different perspectives.

Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related field; master’s degree preferred.

• Minimum 8 years of experience in system or component validation.
• Strong understanding of powertrain systems, including engines and transmissions, and their validation requirements.
• Expertise in reliability engineering, test methods, and confidence metrics.
• Demonstrated ability to provide technical direction, mentor engineers, and influence cross‑functional alignment.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to manage priorities and drive data‑based decisions.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills.
• Comfortable working hands‑on with engines, vehicles, and test equipment.
• Travel as needed, typically less than 10%.
• Experience with validation tools.
• Familiarity with DVP&R and requirements management tools is a plus.
• Ability to work around running engines, vehicles, and test equipment with proper PPE.

The starting pay range for Minnesota is $120,000 to $158,000 per year. Individual salaries and positioning within the range are determined through a wide variety of factors including but not limited to education, experience, knowledge, skills, and geography. While individual pay could fall anywhere in the range based on these factors, it is not common to start at the high end or top of the range.

To qualify for this position, former employees must be eligible for rehire, and current…