Overview The QA Team Leader will build and lead our quality assurance function from the ground up. This role will define our QA strategy, establish standards and procedures, and ensure product quality across our entire suite of applications. This is a product-focused QA role. Will work hand-in-hand with our product team to validate requirements, define acceptance criteria, and ensure features meet user needs before they ship. This role emphasizes process, collaboration, and product quality and not only writing test automation code to service. Moreover, it will directly impact the quality of our booking engines, partner platforms, and financial systems that serve customers in over 100+ countries worldwide. It will also be the voice of quality at InCruises with the autonomy to build the QA discipline your way and eventually grow a QA team. Essential Functions Define and implement our QA strategy, standards, and best practices from scratch Create QA processes and procedures that scale with our product and engineering Establish quality gates and metrics that ensure consistent product quality Document testing processes, guidelines, and onboarding materials for future team Build the business case for QA tooling, resources, and team expansion Partner with product managers to validate project requirements and ensure they're complete, clear, and testable Define acceptance criteria for features and user stories Review PRDs and specifications to identify gaps, edge cases, and potential issues Participate in sprint planning and provide QA perspective on feature complexity Advocate for the user by championing usability, accessibility, and overall product quality Conduct thorough manual testing of features before release Perform exploratory testing to uncover edge cases and unexpected behaviors Execute regression testing to ensure new changes don't break existing functionality Validate user flows across our booking engines, partner dashboards, and admin tools Triage and prioritize bugs, working with engineering to ensure timely resolution Verify bug fixes and confirm issues are properly resolved Define release readiness criteria and sign-off processes Create and maintain test plans for major features and releases Track quality metrics and report on product health Coordinate UAT (User Acceptance Testing) with stakeholders when needed Monitor production quality through error tracking and user feedback Experience and Knowledge 5+ years of QA experience, with at least 2 years in a senior or lead capacity Proven ability to define and implement QA processes, standards, and procedures Strong experience writing acceptance criteria and working with product teams on requirements Expertise in manual testing, exploratory testing, and regression testing methodologies Experience creating and executing test plans for complex features Excellent communication skills to advocate for quality with product managers, engineers, and stakeholders Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to identify edge cases and potential issues Experience with bug tracking and test management tools (Jira, TestRail, or similar) Self-motivated with the ability to work independently and drive initiatives Background in QA engineering, familiarity with automated testing tools and concepts Experience and Knowledge (Preferred) Experience building QA teams or departments from scratch Background in travel, e-commerce, or booking platforms Hands-on experience with test automation tools (Cypress, Selenium, Playwright) Familiarity with API testing tools (Postman, Insomnia) Experience with regression testing frameworks and test suite management Knowledge of accessibility testing (WCAG guidelines, screen readers) Experience with performance or load testing concepts Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and how automated tests integrate Experience with test management tools (TestRail, Zephyr, qTest) Background with financial systems or payment processing testing #J-18808-Ljbffr