QA Manager

Job Description: Key Responsibilities Quality Strategy & Process Ownership Develop, own, and execute the overall QA strategy , ensuring alignment with organizational goals and client expectations. Define, implement, and monitor QA processes, standards, and best practices across projects. Continuously assess and adopt industry best practices, methodologies, and tools suited to the organization. Establish and track key QA metrics (defect density, test coverage, automation coverage, defect leakage, etc.) to measure effectiveness and drive improvements. Leadership & People Management Lead, mentor, and manage a team of QA Engineers and Senior QA professionals. Define and implement a career development and skill enhancement roadmap for team members. Foster a high-performance culture , motivating the team and managing individual performance effectively. Act as a third-line people manager , serving as an escalation point for QA leads and engineers. Own the hiring strategy and decision-making for the QA team, ensuring strong succession planning and talent retention. Customer Focus & Stakeholder Management Ensure customer satisfaction from a software quality perspective , acting as the voice of quality in client engagements. Collaborate with Product Managers, Business Analysts, Architects, and Development Leads to align on requirements and quality expectations. Support pre-sales engagements by demonstrating QA capabilities, presenting testing strategies, and addressing client queries. Risk Management & Production Support Identify and highlight software quality risks , providing risk assessments and mitigation plans. Proactively contribute to production issue investigations , conducting root cause analysis, and defining preventive measures. Establish defect management and escalation processes to ensure timely resolution of quality issues. Continuous Improvement & Innovation Drive test efficiency and productivity improvements through process optimization, automation, and tool adoption. Own quality assurance initiatives that strengthen release predictability, reliability, and time-to-market. Stay up to date with the latest QA trends, tools, and technologies, and integrate relevant advancements into the QA practice. Qualifications & Skills Required: Bachelor s or Master s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field. 10+ years of experience in software quality assurance , with at least 3 5 years in a QA leadership or managerial role . Strong knowledge of QA methodologies, processes, and best practices (manual and automation). Experience with test management tools (e.g., JIRA, TestRail, Zephyr, ALM). Proven ability to manage and scale QA teams, driving both people and process excellence. Strong leadership, problem-solving, and decision-making skills. Excellent communication and stakeholder management abilities. Preferred: Hands-on experience with test automation frameworks and tools (e.g., Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, TestNG, JUnit). Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines and QA integration into DevOps. Experience in Agile/Scrum environments and familiarity with SAFe or other scaled Agile frameworks. Certification in Quality Assurance/Testing (e.g., ISTQB, CSTE, CSQA) or Project Management (PMP, CSM) is a plus. Exposure to cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and testing strategies for SaaS-based applications. Location: DGS India - Bengaluru - Manyata N1 Block Brand: Merkle Time Type: Full time Contract Type: Permanent