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Director of Quality Engineering (QA Director)

Sailes

Sailes

Quality Assurance
United States · Iowa, USA · Iowa City, IA, USA · Booneville, MS, USA
Posted on Mar 9, 2026
Job Description - Director Of Quality Engineering (QA Director)

Experience: 18+ Years

Role Type: Leadership / Strategic

Company Type: Product-Based / SaaS

Location: India / Hybrid / Remote

Role Overview

We are seeking a Director of Quality Engineering to define and drive the organization's quality vision across products and platforms. This role is responsible for end-to-end quality ownership, scaling QA practices, enabling automation-first delivery, and partnering with Engineering, Product, and Leadership to deliver reliable, high-impact releases.

Key Responsibilities

=9 Quality Vision & Strategy

  • Define and execute the enterprise-wide quality strategy
  • Establish quality governance, KPIs, and engineering excellence standards
  • Champion shift-left, shift-right, and continuous testing practices
  • Own quality transformation initiatives (manual → automation → intelligence-driven QA)

=9 Leadership & Organization Building

  • Build and lead multiple QA teams across products
  • Mentor QA Managers, Architects, and Leads
  • Drive hiring strategy, org design, and succession planning
  • Create a culture of quality ownership and accountability

=9 Automation, Tools & Engineering Excellence

  • Drive automation-first approach (UI, API, integration, performance)
  • Standardize tools and frameworks (Playwright / Cypress / Selenium / API tools)
  • Ensure automation integration into CI/CD pipelines
  • Improve test reliability, execution speed, and coverage

=9 Agile Delivery & Release Management

  • Partner with Product and Engineering in:
    • Backlog grooming
    • Sprint planning
    • Release planning and cut-off decisions
  • Own code freeze, release readiness, and go/no-go decisions
  • Lead defect triage and release risk assessments
=9 Cross-Functional & Executive Collaboration

  • Act as a trusted quality advisor to Engineering, Product, DevOps, and Support
  • Communicate quality risks, trends, and metrics to executive leadership
  • Represent QA in architecture, roadmap, and transformation discussions

=9 Customer & Production Quality

  • Drive improvements in production stability and customer experience
  • Analyze production defects and implement preventive quality measures
  • Define post-release validation and monitoring strategies

Required Qualifications

  • 18+ years of experience in Software Quality Engineering
  • 8+ years in QA leadership roles (Manager / Director level)
  • Strong background in product-based or SaaS companies
  • Proven experience scaling QA teams and processes
  • Deep understanding of:
    • Agile / Scrum / SAFe
    • Test automation & CI/CD
    • Release management and quality metrics
Preferred / Nice To Have

  • Experience with AI, Voice AI, Data-driven platforms
  • Cloud exposure (AWS / Azure / GCP)
  • Certifications: CSPO, SAFe, ISTQB, Six Sigma
  • Experience working with global and distributed teams

Key Success Metrics

  • Predictable, high-quality releases
  • High automation adoption and coverage
  • Reduced production defects and escaped bugs
  • Strong QA leadership pipeline
  • Positive stakeholder and customer feedback

Why Join Us?

  • Lead quality for high-impact products
  • Influence engineering culture at scale
  • Partner directly with executive leadership
  • Drive innovation in quality engineering