Engineering Lead, Quality
About The Position
As a Engineering Lead, Quality, you will play a senior technical role responsible for ensuring the quality, reliability, and performance of member-facing platforms through hands-on engineering leadership and execution of automation-first practices across the SDLC. This position focuses on designing and implementing quality engineering solutions, leveraging deep technical expertise in automation, API-first testing, AI-driven/agentic techniques, and non-functional validation. This is not a traditional QA Lead role. We are looking for a senior engineer (senior SDET) to lead a team of quality engineers in a dotted line capacity building scalable, code-driven quality solutions, not just manage testing activities. This is a Full-time, Permanent role based at Vancity head office. Our head office is based in Vancouver, but we are open to candidates in BC and Ontario. While this position provides a hybrid work arrangement, you will be expected to be on-site for events and business demands when needed.
Requirements
- 10+ years of experience in software engineering, quality engineering, or related field
- Experience operating as a senior technical contributor or SDET
- Strong programming skills (Python, JavaScript, C#, Java)
- Proven experience designing and building and evolving automation frameworks (not just using them)
- Deep experience in API-first testing and reducing reliance on UI-based automation
- Experience with AI-powered testing or test generation: LLMs, agentic and spec-driven automation
- Experience integrating test automation into CI/CD pipelines
- Strong experience in automated NFR validation
- Experience with scalable API automation frameworks (REST, event-driven systems)
- Hands-on experience with tools like Playwright, Cypress, Postman, or equivalent
- Experience with distributed systems and microservices architectures
- Familiarity with AWS or Azure, containers (Docker/Kubernetes)
- Data-driven approach to measuring and improving quality
- Ability to evaluate quality effectiveness by analyzing automation outcomes and leveraging data to identify patterns and signals
Nice To Haves
- Engineering-minded – Treating testing as a software engineering discipline.
- Collaborative – Influencing teams and building alignment without formal authority.
- Analytical – Solving complex technical problems in ambiguous environments.
- Innovative – Exploring AI-driven automation and modern engineering practices.
Responsibilities
- Translating quality engineering strategy and technical direction into executable plans and approaches aligned to business and delivery needs
- Collaborating directly with product and engineering partner teams to embed quality objectives within those teams’ delivery contexts
- Designing and implementing scalable, data-driven automated validation approaches that reduce reliance on manual and UI-heavy testing
- Contributing to metrics and quality signals (e.g. automation coverage, test reliability metrics, CI/CD feedback loops) through instrumentation and KPIs
- Implementing and enforcing quality gates (API coverage, performance thresholds, reliability criteria) within Dev-owned CI/CD pipelines
- Providing technical leadership as a senior individual contributor to the Quality Engineering team, operating as a “first among equals” within SDET community
- Influencing, guiding and coaching SDETs through hands-on collaboration in various areas including coding, automation design / engineering, data analysis, etc.
- Leading by example through design, coding and reviews, setting a high standard for the quality engineering craft
- Bringing teams together and drive alignment in ambiguous situations through technical credibility and sound business judgement, not formal authority
- Identifying risks and guide teams through technical problem-solving, risk-based testing and execution leadership
- Designing, building and evolving scalable automation frameworks across API, service, and UI layers—with API-first as core principle
- Integrating validation into CI/CD pipelines (e.g. Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI) for continuous quality feedback
- Implementing modern API testing approaches such as contract testing, service virtualization, and data-driven validation
- Driving the transition from Selenium-heavy UI automation to a layered testing approach (API → integration → minimal UI)
- Exploring and implementing AI-assisted and agentic testing approaches to improve coverage, speed, and maintainability of our test automation
- Partnering with developers to improve testability, observability, and API-first approach
- Collaborating with DevOps and releasing engineering to support reliable, automated deployments
- Leading root cause analysis for production issues and implementing preventative engineering solutions
- Being the Dev teams’ quality advocate, promoting shift-left quality practices over manual and UI-driven downstream approaches
- Designing and implementing automated validation across API, service, and system layers
- Building systems that prevent defect leakage through early validation and automation
- Executing performance, security, and regression validation through automated frameworks integrated into pipelines
Benefits
- Competitive rewards and benefits
- Flexible benefit packages that can be tailored annually to meet evolving needs
- 3-4 weeks of vacation per year, with additional days earned over time
- 2 extra stat holidays, plus care days for personal or family illness
- Health and dental benefits begin on your hire date, with three levels of coverage to choose from
- Defined Benefit Pension
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
