QA Lead

**5 days/week on-site in Markham office**

The QA Lead will drive the quality vision and execution for one or more product lines. This is a hybrid leadership role blending hands-on testing expertise with strategic people, process, and tooling leadership — including the integration of modern AI capabilities. You’ll guide a high-performing QA team to deliver reliable, high-quality software through a thoughtful mix of manual/exploratory testing and automated test engineering.

Key Responsibilities:

Quality Strategy & Governance

• Define and evangelize the overall QA strategy, quality KPIs, and release readiness criteria.
• Champion modern quality practices including shift-left (TDD/BDD) and shift-right (observability, production monitoring) testing.
• Lead the development of risk-based test plans, traceability matrices, and continuous quality improvement strategies.
• Leverage AI-assisted tools for test prioritization and risk analysis to target high-impact areas.

People Leadership

• Hire, mentor, and grow a multidisciplinary QA team including manual testers, SDETs, and automation engineers.
• Coach team members on test design, root cause analysis, automation best practices, and career development.
• Conduct regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and individual growth plans to build a culture of accountability and learning.

Manual & Exploratory Testing

• Lead the creation of detailed test cases, exploratory charters, and session-based test documentation.
• Execute thorough validation across web, mobile, and API layers, including usability, accessibility, and edge cases.
• Manage comprehensive test cycles: smoke, regression, UAT, load/performance, and production verification.
• Use AI tools to generate exploratory ideas and summarize findings efficiently.

Automation Engineering

• Design and maintain robust UI, API, and integration test suites using frameworks like Playwright, Cypress, or Selenium.
• Build out CI/CD-integrated pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, Azure DevOps) with rapid failure detection.
• Implement test data management, service virtualization, and environment provisioning.
• Adopt cutting-edge AI tools for self-healing tests and automated script generation to reduce maintenance overhead.

Process, Tooling & Quality Reporting

• Standardize tooling across the QA lifecycle (e.g., Jira/Xray, TestRail, Zephyr).
• Drive SLA adherence for defect triage, reporting, and resolution.
• Deliver clear, actionable QA dashboards and facilitate root cause analysis (RCA) and retrospectives.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Represent QA in agile ceremonies, design reviews, and release readiness discussions.
• Work closely with Product, DevOps, Engineering, Security, and Customer Success to ensure quality goals are aligned.

Qualifications & Experience:

• 3+ years leading QA or SDET teams.
• Strong background in both manual and automated testing for SaaS/cloud-native applications.
• Experience working with offshore teams.
• Proficient in JavaScript/TypeScript and one or more automation frameworks (e.g., Playwright, Cypress, Selenium).
• Deep familiarity with Agile/Scrum, CI/CD workflows, Git-based version control.
• Hands-on experience with API testing (Postman, REST-assured, Pact), data validation (SQL/NoSQL), and performance tools (JMeter, k6).
• Experience with containerized environments (Docker, Kubernetes) and at least one major cloud platform (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Strong communication, coaching, and stakeholder management skills.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Certifications: ISTQB Advanced Test Manager, Certified Agile Tester, or equivalent.
• Experience in microservices, event-driven, or IoT systems.
• Exposure to security testing (e.g., OWASP ZAP, Burp Suite, SAST/DAST).
• Familiarity with observability tools like Grafana, Prometheus, New Relic, or Datadog.
• Experience implementing AI-powered QA tools (e.g., generative testing, predictive analytics, self-healing automation).