QA Lead | Atlanta

Photon•United States,

3d•$52,000 - $182,000•Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking an experienced QA Lead to define, drive, and execute the Quality Engineering strategy for a large-scale digital platform modernization and integration orchestration program within the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) and e-commerce ecosystem. This role will lead end-to-end quality assurance efforts across cloud-native microservices, API gateways, event-driven architectures, loyalty platforms, identity services, and commerce integrations, ensuring production readiness, scalability, security, reliability, and exceptional customer experiences. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in automation-first testing practices, API and integration testing, AWS-native systems, CI/CD-driven quality engineering, observability-led testing, and Agile delivery models. Experience in e-commerce platforms, loyalty ecosystems, customer engagement journeys, and high-volume transaction systems is highly desirable.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field.
10–15 years of experience in Quality Engineering, with at least 3+ years in a QA leadership role supporting enterprise-scale digital platforms.
Strong experience testing: Microservices architectures; REST APIs; API Gateways; Event-driven systems; Distributed applications
Proven expertise in test automation frameworks and tools such as: Selenium; Playwright; Cypress; Rest Assured; Karate; Postman/Newman; JMeter; Similar modern automation platforms
Hands-on experience implementing CI/CD-driven continuous testing using: Jenkins; GitHub Actions; GitLab CI/CD; AWS DevOps Toolchain; Comparable platforms
Strong experience testing cloud-native applications on AWS, including containerized and serverless workloads.
Experience validating loyalty platforms, identity management solutions, and digital commerce workflows.
Strong understanding of: E-commerce customer journeys; Checkout and payment processing; Customer engagement platforms; Loyalty lifecycle management; Omnichannel digital experiences
Experience implementing performance, resiliency, security, and chaos testing strategies.
Excellent communication, stakeholder management, analytical, and leadership skills.
Experience working within Agile, Scrum, and SAFe delivery frameworks.

Nice To Haves

Experience in QSR, restaurant technology, retail, hospitality, or high-scale consumer-facing digital platforms.
Hands-on experience validating: Feature Flags; Progressive Rollouts; Canary Releases
Experience testing high-volume transactional systems with strict latency and availability SLAs.
Certifications such as: ISTQB; Agile Testing Certifications; AWS Certifications; DevOps Certifications; SAFe Certifications

Responsibilities

Define and own the end-to-end Quality Engineering strategy, roadmap, governance model, and execution framework across discovery, development, integration, testing, and production rollout phases.
Establish quality standards, testing methodologies, quality gates, and release readiness criteria aligned with enterprise delivery objectives.
Lead QA planning, estimation, staffing, risk assessment, and execution across multiple Agile teams and workstreams.
Lead testing efforts across cloud-native microservices, RESTful APIs, middleware orchestration services, identity platforms, loyalty systems, and third-party integrations.
Design and execute comprehensive test strategies covering functional, integration, regression, system, user acceptance, and end-to-end testing.
Validate complex customer journeys including account creation, authentication, loyalty enrollment, rewards redemption, digital ordering, checkout, payment processing, and customer engagement workflows.
Develop testing approaches for event-driven and asynchronous architectures, including message queues, event streams, and API gateway integrations.
Validate event propagation, message reliability, ordering, fault tolerance, retry mechanisms, and system resiliency.
Ensure seamless interoperability between cloud-native services, external platforms, and enterprise systems.
Drive an automation-first quality engineering culture across the program.
Design and implement scalable automation frameworks for: API Automation, UI Automation, Integration Testing, Contract Testing, Regression Testing.
Establish continuous testing practices integrated into CI/CD pipelines.
Enable automated validation for feature flags, progressive releases, canary deployments, and production rollouts.
Establish test environment management strategies for cloud-native applications and integrated ecosystems.
Define test data management, masking, synthetic data generation, and service virtualization approaches.
Ensure stable and scalable testing environments supporting continuous delivery objectives.
Collaborate closely with Product Owners, Architects, Engineering Leads, DevOps teams, Business Analysts, and Program Leadership.
Embed quality guardrails and governance controls throughout the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC).
Provide executive-level reporting on quality metrics, defect trends, release readiness, risks, and mitigation plans.
Lead and mentor QA engineers and automation specialists.
Establish testing best practices, reusable assets, standards, and quality engineering frameworks.
Drive continuous improvement initiatives focused on efficiency, automation coverage, and quality outcomes.