Director, QA Engineering

About OvalEdge OvalEdge is a leading Data Governance and Data Catalog platform empowering organizations to discover, manage, and democratize their data with confidence. Our mission is to make data governance simple, collaborative, and impactful — enabling enterprises to unlock actual business value from their data. As we continue to scale, we are looking for a visionary Director, QA Engineering to lead our Quality function and ensure that every OvalEdge release stands for excellence, reliability, and trust. About the Role OvalEdge is seeking a Director of Quality Assurance to lead the next phase of our product quality transformation. Our platform powers enterprise-grade Data Governance , connecting to a wide variety of data sources and delivering deep metadata, lineage, and discovery capabilities. As Director of QA, you’ll take ownership of a complex, high-variability testing landscape — where every customer deployment can look different, with unique data connectors, lineage scenarios, and environment dependencies. You’ll drive quality from the ground up: modernizing automation, stabilizing releases, and inspiring engineering excellence across the organization. If you thrive on solving tough problems, love bringing structure to chaos, and want to make a measurable impact on product reliability and customer trust — this is the role for you. Key Responsibilities 1. QA Strategy & Leadership Define and execute a transformative QA vision and roadmap aligned with OvalEdge’s product and customer goals. Build, mentor, and lead a world-class QA team across functional, automation, and performance testing disciplines. Instil a “Quality-first, Engineering-owned” mindset across product and development teams. Collaborate closely with Engineering leadership to address technical debt, weak unit testing practices, and process gaps that affect product stability. Champion initiatives that make quality measurable, visible, and repeatable across all releases. 2. Quality Engineering & Automation Architect and evolve automation frameworks for UI, API, and backend testing using modern tools (e.g., Playwright, Selenium, RestAssured, Cypress). Develop a progressive automation roadmap , prioritizing high-impact regression areas and data connector validation. Partner with DevOps to integrate quality gates into CI/CD pipelines, enabling continuous testing and faster feedback loops. Introduce innovative solutions for data lineage testing , ensuring accuracy across complex metadata relationships and customer environments. Ensure automation and manual testing strategies adapt to varied customer deployments, on-premise or cloud. 3. Process Excellence & Release Quality Establish standardized QA processes , entry/exit criteria, and release readiness checklists across all product lines. Drive release quality ownership by collaborating with Engineering, Product, and DevOps to identify and resolve high-risk areas early. Implement root cause analysis (RCA) for recurring defects and embed preventive measures upstream. Improve unit testing coverage, code review rigor , and developer accountability to minimize post-release defects. Create predictable, data-driven release cycles with clear go/no-go gates. 4. Quality Analytics & Continuous Improvement Define and track quality KPIs (e.g., defect leakage, automation coverage, test execution velocity, release stability). Build real-time dashboards that provide visibility into product health and release readiness. Leverage insights from production issues and customer-reported defects to continuously refine test coverage and automation. Use metrics to drive conversations, set priorities, and demonstrate progress in quality maturity. 5. Cross-functional Collaboration & Customer Focus Work closely with Engineering, Product Management, and Customer Success to proactively identify quality risks and incorporate customer feedback into QA strategy. Partner with implementation teams to validate configurations, connectors, and upgrades in customer environments. Lead initiatives to replicate or simulate customer environments for testing complex lineage and integration scenarios. Serve as the voice of quality in customer conversations, ensuring release confidence and customer trust. Requirements Experience: 12+ years in Software Quality Assurance, with at least 4+ years in a QA leadership role (managing managers and teams across multiple QA disciplines). Domain Knowledge: Prior experience with Data Governance, Data Integration, or Metadata Management platforms is highly preferred. Technical Depth: Proven experience designing and scaling automation frameworks for UI, API, and backend systems. Hands-on understanding of test automation tools (Playwright, Selenium, RestAssured, Cypress, Postman) and scripting languages (Python, Java, or JavaScript). Familiarity with data validation , ETL testing, and working with SQL and NoSQL data sources. DevOps & CI/CD Integration: Strong knowledge of CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, etc.) and embedding automated quality gates . Process Leadership: Demonstrated success driving QA process transformation in complex or legacy product environments. Analytical Skills: Ability to define, measure, and act on data-driven quality metrics to improve product and process outcomes. Problem Solving: Creative, out-of-the-box thinker capable of tackling challenges like environment variability , data lineage testing , and connector-level validation . Collaboration: Strong cross-functional communicator who can partner effectively with Product, Engineering, DevOps, and Customer teams. Mindset: Strategic yet hands-on; capable of balancing long-term vision with immediate stabilization needs. Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field. A Master’s degree or equivalent technical leadership experience is a plus. What Success Looks Like Dramatic reduction in defect leakage and regression issues. Automation integrated into CI/CD with measurable coverage gains. Stabilized release cycles and improved customer confidence. Repeatable frameworks for validating connectors, lineage, and data quality across diverse deployments. A high-performing QA organization known for creativity, rigor, and impact. Why Join OvalEdge Join a rapidly growing Data Governance leader impacting global enterprises. Shape and scale the QA vision in a high-impact leadership role. Work with passionate teams that value collaboration, innovation, and ownership . A culture that celebrates learning, transparency, and quality at every level.