Lead Product Quality Assurance Engineer

Eli Lilly and Company•San Francisco, CA

About The Position

Lilly is hiring a Quality Engineering Lead to own the end-to-end testing lifecycle for software products, from strategy through release, and ensure quality, reliability, and on-time delivery. The role works closely with developers, product managers, and business analysts to define testing requirements, implement automation strategies, and accelerate delivery while reducing manual testing. It also anticipates risks from technology or environment changes and partners with support teams to address them before they become production incidents. The position leads a globally distributed QE team, establishing work structures and collaboration rhythms across time zones. US-based business and development stakeholders may require the lead to serve as the primary or only QE presence during US business hours and to step in hands-on, including during US afternoon or evening deployments. The lead champions the Quality Engineering strategy across products, improving testing efficiency and speed through modern automation and AI-assisted testing practices. Tech@Lilly builds technology capabilities to advance Lilly’s purpose of creating medicines that make life better, including through data-driven drug discovery and connected clinical trials.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related technical engineering discipline.
At least 8 years of software quality assurance experience.
At least 5 years in a Test Lead or QE Lead capacity.
Experience leading end-to-end testing activities across multiple teams in an Agile delivery environment.
Comprehensive knowledge of functional, regression, integration, performance, and exploratory testing.
Proficiency with test management tools such as TestRail, XRay, Qtest, or Quality Center.
Hands-on experience with automation frameworks such as Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, or Puppeteer.
Working knowledge of GitHub and CI/CD tools such as GitHub Actions or Jenkins.
Strong understanding of AI in testing and demonstrated ability to drive AI adoption in QE practices.
Proven experience leading end-to-end testing lifecycles (STLC) in Agile delivery models.
Strong knowledge of SDLC and Agile practices, with hands-on experience using planning tools such as Jira.
Ability to apply shift-left principles through participation in design reviews, architecture discussions, and sprint planning.
Ability to align test strategy with business goals and delivery commitments and build stakeholder relationships beyond the immediate business area.
Strong interpersonal, team-building, conflict-resolution, and decision-making skills across business and technical functions.
Ability to adapt, assess options, and keep work moving when information is incomplete.
Ability to independently execute testing, make release-critical judgments, and communicate outcomes when QE team backup is unavailable.
Experience leading distributed teams across time zones and planning effective collaboration overlap.
Ability to coordinate multiple teams and stakeholder groups, especially for SIT and UAT.
Clear communication with technical and non-technical stakeholders and attention to detail in identifying, isolating, and documenting defects.
Must be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis; Lilly will not sponsor or support work authorization or visas for this role.

Responsibilities

Develop and document test strategies and plans aligned with project goals, defining objectives, scope, deliverables, success criteria, resources, schedules, and tooling.
Identify testing needs and anticipate risks and resource requirements before they surface.
Champion shift-left testing by engaging early in development, understanding product architecture, and surfacing testability gaps, design risks, and integration complexities.
Oversee test-case preparation and execution, requirements coverage, progress monitoring, adherence to plans, and defect tracking, reporting, and resolution.
Contribute hands-on during deployments when needed, including executing smoke and regression suites, making go/no-go assessments, and communicating critical blockers.
Define and track quality indicators such as defect density, test coverage, and execution rates; report trends to stakeholders and use metrics to inform release-readiness decisions.
Lead the design, development, and maintenance of test automation frameworks and guide technical solutioning and implementation course corrections.
Balance manual and automated testing according to project context and risk, and drive continuous testing integration in CI/CD pipelines.
Serve as the primary contact for testing queries and provide regular progress, metrics, and results updates to project managers and product owners.
Coordinate cross-team System Integration Testing (SIT) and User Acceptance Testing (UAT), aligning schedules, criteria, environments, and stakeholder readiness.
Plan collaboration windows, stand-ups, and reviews for the globally distributed team to maintain meaningful coverage across time zones.
Escalate critical risks and issues, develop mitigation strategies addressing root causes, clear bottlenecks and dependency conflicts, and lead resolution efforts.
Lead and collaborate with professional peers and leadership across teams, maintaining delivery momentum and addressing internal customer needs.
Motivate and guide the QE team, resolve conflicts, and make sound decisions on complex issues affecting one or multiple teams.

Benefits

Company bonus, depending in part on company and individual performance.
Company-sponsored 401(k) eligibility.
Pension.
Vacation benefits.
Medical, dental, vision, and prescription drug benefits.
Flexible benefits, including healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts.
Life insurance and death benefits.
Certain time-off and leave-of-absence benefits.
Well-being benefits, including an employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities.
Employee resource groups open to all employees.