QA Lead

Job Description We are seeking a hands-on QA Lead to build and own the future of quality assurance at Sonetel. This is a player-coach role where you will define our QA strategy, build and manage Sonetel's automation frameworks, and lead a small, agile QA team. You are a quality architect and a master of release velocity, with strong fundamentals in testing principles and systematic thinking. You will have end-to-end ownership of the quality function, from shaping requirements to certifying production releases, ensuring our customers receive a world-class product. What You Will Do: - Define, build, and own Sonetel's QA strategy, processes, and automation frameworks for UI, API, and regression testing - Lead a small QA team, providing hands-on mentorship, guidance, and support - Act as a force multiplier by embedding a quality-first mindset across engineering, product, and operations teams - Design, develop, and execute comprehensive test plans and test cases with a heavy emphasis on automation - Design comprehensive test strategies with strong focus on risk-based testing and user experience validation - Own the release management process from a quality perspective, acting as the final gatekeeper for production deployments - Collaborate with operations and customer-facing teams to triage production issues, perform root cause analysis (RCA), and convert learnings into automated test coverage - Establish and track key quality metrics (e.g., defect escape rate, automation coverage, release confidence) to drive continuous improvement Requirements Who You Are: - A Proven QA Leader: 5-8 years in software quality assurance, with significant experience as a Senior or Lead QA Engineer in a high-growth startup or product-centric company. You have a track record of building QA functions from the ground up - An Automation Champion: Demonstrable, hands-on expertise in building and scaling test automation frameworks (e.g., Selenium, Cypress/Playwright, Appium) and API testing tools (e.g., Postman, REST-Assured) - A True Quality Owner: You have a history of owning the quality for entire products. You think in terms of user experience and risk-based testing and are deeply familiar with the full software development lifecycle - 100% Hands-On & Technical: You are a skilled engineer who can write code, design frameworks, and lead by doing - A Pragmatic Product Thinker: You are obsessed with the end-user experience and use this as a guiding star for your testing strategy, focusing on what brings the most value and stability to the customer - A Bias for Action: You excel at prioritizing in a fast-paced environment. You are practical, results-oriented, and maintain high throughput without sacrificing quality - An Excellent Communicator: You can articulate technical risks to business stakeholders and collaborate effectively with developers to resolve issues. You bridge the gap between technical and non-technical teams Nice if you have: - Experience with voice, video, or real-time communication testing (e.g., WebRTC, SIP) - Experience with performance, load, and security testing - Knowledge and hands-on experience with cloud platforms like AWS or Azure and CI/CD pipelines - Experience with advanced QA practices like chaos engineering - Experience with AI-driven development of test cases, faster and efficient development of test cases or low code development Benefits At Sonetel, we offer a comprehensive range of benefits designed to support both professional and personal growth. Employees enjoy top-tier health insurance and life coverage, upfront credited leaves with a superb leave policy, flexible remote work options, and direct exposure to CXOs. Our vibrant and inclusive culture fosters collaboration, while involvement in cutting-edge AI projects provides a rapid learning curve and hands-on experience with emerging technologies. Employee feedback consistently highlights our supportive and approachable management, friendly and transparent work environment with minimal micromanagement, as well as great work-life balance and flexible hours, all of which make Sonetel a place where people can thrive and grow.