The ideal candidate will have strong technical expertise in QA methodologies, automation frameworks, non-functional testing, and excellent leadership skills.

This role ensures product quality through strategic planning, robust QA processes, and cross-functional collaboration.

Key Responsibilities :

Leadership & Team Management :

- Lead, mentor, and manage a team of manual and automation QA engineers.

- Define team goals, assign responsibilities, and monitor performance.

- Develop and execute training plans to enhance team capabilities in automation, manual testing, and new QA technologies.

- Foster a culture of quality, collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.

Quality Strategy & Planning :

- Define and own the overall QA strategy, test approach, and quality metrics across releases.

- Collaborate with Product and Engineering team to align test plans with business priorities.

- Establish standardized processes, templates, and best practices across teams.

- Identify quality risks early and drive mitigation strategies.

Automation & Framework Management :

- Architect, maintain, and evolve automation frameworks (UI, API, mobile, performance).

- Define standards for code quality, test coverage, and automation ROI.

- Drive automation adoption across the organization and integrate it with CI/CV pipelines.

- Stay updated on modern automation tools and evaluate/test new tools as needed.

Manual Testing & Release Quality :

- Oversee functional testing, regression, exploratory testing, and UAT support.

- Ensure test plans, test cases, and traceability matrices are comprehensive and up to date.

- Drive defect management processes and work with engineering teams to improve bug turnaround.

- Ensure every release meets defined exit criteria.

Non-Functional Testing (NFRs) :

- Define NFR testing strategy for performance, security, reliability, and usability.

- Collaborate with infrastructure teams to ensure systems are tested under realistic conditions.

- Use industry-standard tools for performance/load testing and security validations.

Process & Continuous Improvement :

- Implement QA metrics (defect density, test coverage, automation rate, cycle time).

- Optimize test cycles through better tooling, automation, and process improvements.

- Promote shift-left testing practices and advocate for quality throughout the SDLC.

Stakeholder Collaboration :

- Work closely with engineering, product managers, and business teams to ensure product quality.

- Provide transparent reporting on quality status, risks, and release readiness.

- Advocate for QA needs in sprint planning and product prioritization.

Required Qualifications :

- Bachelors degree in Computer science, Engineering, or related field.

- 15+ years of experience in QA, including 3+ years in a QA leadership role.

- Strong hands-on experience with automation tools such as UFT, Rational Robot, Cypress, Playwright, Appium, Postman, RestAssured, or similar.

- Solid understanding of QA methodologies, testing types, and SDLC.

- Experience designing automation frameworks (data-driven, BDD, hybrid, keyword-driven).

- Knowledge of performance/security testing tools (JMeter, Gatling, LoadRunner, OWASP tools, etc.).

- Experience working with CI tools (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI).

- Excellent communication, leadership, and conflict-resolution skills.

Preferred Qualifications :

- Understanding of AI and tools related to AI in testing.

- Familiarity with Agile/Scrum environment.