QA Competence Lead

About the role:
As the QA Competence Lead, you will be the driving force behind our quality assurance strategy, processes, and team growth. This role is a dynamic blend of technical excellence and people leadership.
You will lead, mentor, and manage a team of QA engineers across multiple projects while remaining hands-on with automation testing and AI tool integration.
The QA Competence Lead is a senior generalist position combining company-wide competency leadership with hands-on Quality Engineering responsibilities on one of the company’s largest projects.

About the Project:
You will join a financial lending platform that processes loan applications, verifies user data, connects to external services, and supports loan lifecycle operations.
The system is built as a modern microservice-based solution with multiple integrations, asynchronous communication, and high reliability requirements.

Requirements:

• Proven experience leading, mentoring, and managing a team of QA engineers, with a track record of driving QA best practices across multiple teams.
• A minimum of 5+ years in QA, with at least 4 years focused on QA automation using Python or JS/TS.
• Hands-on experience with Playwright, including setup, configuration, and test scripting.
• Experience using modern AI tools to improve testing workflows and daily productivity.

Technical Skills:

• Strong proficiency in Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) principles.
• Solid experience with version control systems such as Git.
• Familiarity with CI/CD tools like GitHub Actions.
• Knowledge of API testing and RESTful services.
• Experience with other test automation frameworks (e.g., Cypress).
• Familiarity with AI coding assistants (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Cursor IDE) and conversational AI (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude).

Responsibilities:
As the QA Competence Lead, you will balance strategic leadership with hands-on technical execution:

• Define and drive the overarching QA strategy, standardizing testing processes, tools, and best practices across the engineering department.
• Conduct regular 1-on-1s, manage performance, and actively guide the professional growth of QA engineers within your competence center.
• Drive project-specific quality by analyzing user stories with product owners to define clear acceptance criteria and translating those requirements into robust, scalable automated test scripts using OOP principles.
• Conduct manual and exploratory testing alongside automated processes to ensure comprehensive coverage of complex or edge-case user scenarios.
• Generate and share high-level test automation reports, providing insights into test results, quality trends, and team performance.
• Optimize deployment scripts for reliability to support more autonomous and automated releases.
• Oversee automation testing activities for multiple projects, ensuring alignment with quality objectives.
• Enhance and maintain established automation frameworks, adapting them to meet project and company needs.
• Develop and update clear and well-organized documentation to support QA processes.
• Integrate AI tools to speed up test scripting, generate test data, and simplify routine tasks, actively training the team on how to use them safely and practically.

What we offer:
Long-term cooperation with no excessive overtime;
A modern and comfortable office equipped with a generator and Starlink or you can work remote;
Flexible working hours and remote work opportunities;
Competitive compensation with regular salary reviews based on performance;
18 paid vacation days and 15 paid sick leave days annually;
Medical insurance or sports compensation;
50% reimbursement for certifications, conferences, training, and other professional development activities;
50% reimbursement for English language courses;
Minimal bureaucracy, no micromanagement, transparent processes, and a supportive team culture built on trust and collaboration.