Staff Quality Assurance Lead

Helcim Inc • Calgary, AB

56d • Hybrid

About The Position

We’re hiring a Staff QA Lead to help us elevate the quality bar across the entire product and engineering org. This is a foundational role: you’ll be the first dedicated QA hire at Helcim, with the opportunity to shape our tools, processes, and testing strategy from the ground up.

You’ll lead the charge in designing and implementing automated test frameworks, defining a mobile testing strategy, and expanding test coverage across our platform. You’ll enable development teams to improve their test coverage by using your tools. You’ll also take ownership of key testing domains—including API testing, end-to-end testing, load testing, and security testing—and ensure they're tightly integrated into our SDLC and CI/CD practices. You’ll collaborate cross-functionally with software engineers, DevOps, DevEx, security, and product teams to embed testing at every layer of development and release. This is a high-impact, hands-on role with both strategic and technical influence.

Requirements

• The Architect’s Mindset: You have 8+ years of experience in software quality, with a proven track record of building testing departments from the ground up in high-growth environments. You don't just "test"; you build systems that make testing invisible and automatic for other engineers.
• PHP & Laravel Expert: You are deeply familiar with the Laravel ecosystem. You understand how to handle service container mocking, and utilize tools like Pest or PHPUnit to ensure backend reliability without sacrificing speed.
• AI Native: You don't see AI as a gimmick. You are proficient in using LLMs (Gemini, Claude) and AI-assisted IDEs (Windsurf, Cursor, or JetBrains AI) to generate boilerplate tests, refactor legacy test suites, and analyze logs for pattern-based bug detection.
• Modern Frontend and Backend Proficiency: You have extensive experience testing reactive frontend frameworks like Vue 3, using tools such as Cypress, Playwright, or Vitest to ensure seamless user experiences. You also understand the importance of modern interfaces and are comfortable building tools for API testing.
• Infrastructure & CI/CD Fluency: You speak the language of DevOps. You have experience working within GCP environments and integrating quality gates into automated pipelines (GitLab CI/CD preferred).
• Mobile Strategist: You have successfully navigated the complexities of mobile QA, from managing real-device farms to implementing automated cross-platform testing for iOS and Android.
• Fintech Rigor: You understand the stakes of moving money. You have experience validating systems against PCI DSS or similar compliance frameworks, ensuring that security and data integrity are never compromised.
• Coach and Mentor: You raise the capabilities of the whole department through knowledge transfer and mentoring of individuals. You have experience helping more junior developers grow and get promoted.
• Strategic Communicator: You can translate complex quality metrics into actionable insights for leadership. You are comfortable advocating for "Quality Assistance" as a philosophy, coaching developers to take pride in their own tests

Nice To Haves

• Custom Tooling & Plugins: Experience developing custom plugins or "Skills" for IDEs (Windsurf, VSCode, or JetBrains) to automate company-specific boilerplate or test-case generation.
• Agentic QA Workflows: Proven experience building or implementing "Agentic" workflows—using LLMs to autonomously browse the app, identify UI regressions, or write initial draft test scripts based on Jira ticket descriptions.
• Advanced Laravel Testing: Deep familiarity with specialized Laravel testing tools like Laravel Dusk for browser automation or Pest’s higher-order expectations to write more readable, maintainable tests.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Experience using Terraform or similar tools to provision ephemeral testing environments within GCP, ensuring that every pull request can be tested in an isolated, production-like state.
• Performance Engineering: Proficiency in k6 or Locust for building "performance-as-code" suites that run within CI/CD to catch latency regressions before they reach production.
• Open Source Contributor: You have contributed to open-source testing frameworks or maintain tools that the broader engineering community uses to improve code quality.

Responsibilities

• Self-Service Testing Infrastructure: Architect and maintain a high-performance testing environment that engineers can trigger locally within their IDEs (Windsurf/JetBrains) or automatically within our CI/CD pipelines.
• AI-Enhanced Automation: Lead the integration of AI tools (Gemini 3/Claude) to accelerate the creation of test suites, automate synthetic data generation in MySQL, and perform predictive risk analysis on new feature branches.
• Full-Stack Framework Design: Design and scale robust automated testing frameworks specifically optimized for our Laravel PHP and Vue.js ecosystem, ensuring deep integration with GCP-based workflows.
• Automated Quality Gates: Build and own the "Quality Gates" within our deployment pipeline to ensure that reliability and security standards are met before code reaches production.
• Mobile Strategy & Execution: Define and manage the end-to-end mobile testing strategy, including the orchestration of real device management and automation for our Android and iOS applications.
• Strategic Engineering Coaching: Act as a force multiplier by coaching software engineers on modern testing patterns, helping them write better tests faster and fostering a culture of shared quality ownership.
• Staging & Load Optimization: Establish SOPs for our staging environments and lead performance initiatives, including load testing requirements to ensure system resilience during peak transaction periods.
• Compliance & Security Validation: Partner with our Security and DevOps teams to automate the validation of critical systems, ensuring continuous alignment with PCI DSS, HIPAA, and other fintech standards.
• Quality & Velocity Metrics: Take full ownership of key performance indicators, specifically tracking and improving Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR) and Change Failure Rate to measure the health of our engineering output.
• Continuous Innovation: Proactively scout and implement emerging QA technologies and scalable approaches to keep Helcim at the forefront of engineering excellence.

Benefits

• Ownership: Every single team member gets Stock Options. You own a piece of what you build! 📈
• Health First: Comprehensive benefits + a Health Spending Account (HSA) starting on Day 1. 🦷
• Flexibility: Hybrid life! We’re in-office Mon/Wed/Fri and remote Tue/Thu. 🏠
• Family Support: Top-ups for maternity leave and "bonding breaks." 👶
• Rest & Recharge: Paid vacation + a full company break in December. ❄️
• Growth: $500 annual training budget to keep your skills sharp. 📚

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed