QA Manager

mTrade•Oxford, MS

About The Position

The QA Manager leads the day-to-day work of QA analysts, QA automation analysts, and application testing personnel responsible for software quality throughout the software development life cycle (SDLC). The role coordinates manual and automated testing, application release validation, and user acceptance and beta testing to ensure software meets business requirements, quality standards, and customer expectations. The manager works with Product Owners, Business Analysts, Development, DevOps, Technical Support, and business users to translate delivery priorities into test plans, assign work, remove obstacles, and communicate testing results and release risks. This is a hands-on supervisory role combining team leadership with technical guidance and direct testing support when needed. The manager oversees test planning and coverage, delivery coordination, automation, defect management, release readiness, business-user and beta testing, test environments, post-release validation, technical guidance, quality reporting, and continuous improvement. The role guides reliable frontend and backend automated testing for C#/.NET applications and partners with Development and DevOps on CI/CD integration. It also supports the team in troubleshooting application and data issues using SQL, API testing tools, logs, and other diagnostic resources. Success in the position includes clear testing ownership and release expectations, documented and transparent release-readiness decisions, reliable coverage of critical workflows, and continuous improvement informed by defect trends and post-release findings. The QA Manager also provides consistent guidance and technical development opportunities for team members and supports effective coordination among QA, Development, Product, Support, and business users.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Demonstrated progression in software quality assurance, including ownership of testing for software releases and experience leading, mentoring, or supervising QA personnel.
Experience coordinating manual and automated testing across web applications, backend services, APIs, and relational databases.
Strong understanding of the SDLC, Agile and Kanban practices, risk-based testing, defect management, and release validation.
Experience using Azure DevOps, Aha, or comparable tools to manage test plans, test cases, defects, work assignments, and testing status.
Practical knowledge of SQL for data validation and troubleshooting, REST API testing, and testing applications built on C#/.NET.
Working knowledge of UI automation tools such as Selenium, Playwright, or Cypress; automated test frameworks; version control; and CI/CD integration sufficient to guide technical testing decisions.
Ability to organize competing priorities, allocate testing resources, resolve dependencies, and communicate delivery risks clearly.
Strong analytical, problem-solving, documentation, and communication skills, with the ability to coach colleagues and collaborate with technical and business stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

Previous direct supervisory responsibility for a QA team spanning manual testing, automation, and business-user testing.
Hands-on experience building or maintaining automated tests, including test assertions, data validation, and setup and teardown logic.
Experience with Azure DevOps Test Plans and pipelines.
Experience testing enterprise, multi-user transaction-processing, or financial software applications.
Experience coordinating beta testing, user acceptance testing, and releases for operational applications such as the Data Entry Application.
Experience improving automation maintainability, test reporting, and defect prevention practices.
ISTQB or another relevant software testing certification.

Responsibilities

Assign and prioritize work across manual testing, automation, and application release testing; balance team capacity against delivery commitments; and provide onboarding, coaching, training, and development opportunities.
Oversee test plans, scenarios, cases, and test data for functional, regression, integration, smoke, user acceptance, UI, and API testing; use business impact and technical risk to focus testing and maintain traceability to requirements and acceptance criteria.
Represent QA in backlog refinement, sprint planning, standups, reviews, and Kanban activities; identify testing dependencies, estimate effort with the team, and escalate resource or schedule constraints.
Guide development and maintenance of frontend and backend automated tests for C#/.NET applications; partner with Development and DevOps to integrate tests into CI/CD pipelines, address unreliable tests, and prioritize meaningful automation.
Establish practices for documenting reproducible defects, including evidence, severity, business impact, and verification results; coordinate defect triage, track resolution, and ensure fixes are retested.
Define test entry and exit criteria with stakeholders; coordinate pre-release smoke and regression testing; provide evidence-based readiness recommendations and escalate release-blocking concerns.
Coordinate business-user and beta testers for the Data Entry Application and other business applications; explain changes, focus testing on important workflows, and consolidate actionable feedback.
Coordinate test environment and test data needs across development, QA, integration, and user acceptance environments; support deployment validation, production issue reproduction, and post-release testing under established access and change procedures.
Review test cases, automation changes, and results for completeness and maintainability; help troubleshoot application and data issues using SQL, API testing tools, logs, and other diagnostic resources.
Maintain reporting on test progress, coverage, defect trends, automation reliability, and post-release issues; communicate status and risks and turn recurring findings into prioritized improvement actions.
Partner with Development and Product to investigate root causes, prevent recurring defects, improve testability, and refine QA standards, documentation, frameworks, and release testing procedures.