Davies is looking for an experienced Manager - Software Quality Assurance (QA) to lead the quality engineering function and ensure reliable, secure, and high-quality software delivery across products and platforms. Reporting to the Senior Manager of Development, this role will be accountable for QA strategy, people leadership, test governance, automation direction, release readiness, quality metrics, and continuous improvement. The successful candidate will combine strong quality engineering expertise with the ability to lead teams, influence delivery stakeholders, manage risks, and embed quality throughout the software development lifecycle.
Key Responsibilities
- Define and own the QA strategy, operating model, standards, processes, and roadmap across software delivery teams.
- Lead, coach, and develop QA engineers, including objective setting, regular feedback, capability development, workload planning, and performance support.
- Establish risk-based test strategies covering functional, regression, integration, data validation, API, performance, security, accessibility, and user acceptance testing, as applicable.
- Own test planning, estimation, resourcing, prioritization, and execution across multiple projects, releases, and delivery teams.
- Drive the test automation strategy, framework governance, tool selection, coverage improvement, maintainability, and integration into CI/CD pipelines.
- Partner with product, engineering, architecture, business, and delivery leaders to define acceptance criteria, non-functional requirements, quality gates, and release readiness.
- Provide clear go/no-go recommendations based on test evidence, defect risk, business impact, and agreed quality thresholds.
- Define, monitor, and report quality metrics such as defect leakage, automation coverage, test effectiveness, execution progress, escaped defects, and release risk.
- Oversee defect triage and ensure defects are clearly documented, prioritized, resolved, retested, and communicated to relevant stakeholders.
- Champion shift-left quality practices, including early QA involvement, requirements reviews, testability reviews, developer testing, and continuous validation.
- Ensure test environments, test data, tools, and dependencies are planned and available to support predictable delivery.
- Identify quality, delivery, and operational risks early; agree mitigation plans and escalate material risks appropriately.
- Continuously improve QA efficiency through automation, reusable assets, better engineering practices, and appropriate use of AI-assisted testing capabilities.
- Manage QA suppliers or partners where applicable, ensuring delivery quality, transparency, and alignment with Davies standards.
- Build a strong quality engineering community of practice and promote consistent standards, knowledge sharing, and continuous learning.
- Support audits, regulatory expectations, and governance requirements by maintaining appropriate test evidence, traceability, and documentation.
Skills, Knowledge and Expertise
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or equivalent practical experience.
- 8+ years of software quality assurance or quality engineering experience, including significant test automation experience.
- 3+ years of experience leading QA engineers or managing quality delivery across multiple teams or workstreams.
- Experience delivering quality assurance for web applications, APIs, integrations, data platforms, or enterprise systems
- Experience working in Agile delivery environments and collaborating with distributed, cross-functional teams.