QA Lead

Kastech Software Solutions Group; Toronto; Hybrid; CAD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Kastech Software Solutions Group in Toronto, Canada, seeks an experienced QA Lead to own end-to-end testing across complex banking applications. You will lead functional, API, back-end, and data-validation efforts, mentor junior QA engineers, and help advance AI-assisted QA practices in a hybrid work setting.

The role demands hands-on testing, automation, SQL validation, and experience with Kafka, ETL, and CI/CD pipelines to ensure high-quality releases for financial services projects.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of QA experience in enterprise environments.
• Hands-on functional and manual testing expertise.
• Strong test automation and API testing capabilities.
• DB validation, SQL proficiency, data-intensive systems.
• Experience with Kafka and event-driven architectures.
• ETL and data pipeline testing experience.
• Familiar with CI/CD and Git-based workflows.
• Exposure to AI-assisted testing / GenAI tooling.
• Leadership experience and ability to mentor others.
• Banking or financial services domain exposure preferred.

Responsibilities

• Lead functional, regression, integration, system, and end-to-end testing for complex applications.
• Analyze requirements, identify coverage gaps, and manage quality risks.
• Develop and maintain test plans, scenarios, cases, and evidence.
• Perform database and backend validation using SQL.
• Validate APIs and service integrations with Postman and similar tools.
• Develop, maintain, and execute automated UI, API, and backend tests.
• Test batch processing systems and data reconciliation tasks.
• Validate Kafka message flows and event-driven integrations.
• Perform ETL testing and source-to-target validation.
• Lead defect analysis, triage, and retesting; plan QA effort and communicate status.
• Mentor junior QA engineers and improve QA practices and automation.
• Contribute to AI-assisted QA initiatives to boost coverage.

Skills

QA experience

Functional testing

Manual testing

Test automation

SQL / DB validation

Kafka / event-driven

ETL testing

API testing

CI/CD pipelines

Leadership / mentoring

GenAI testing tools

Tools

Selenium

Cypress

Playwright

Rest Assured

Java

Python

Git

Jenkins

GitLab CI

Azure DevOps

CI/CD

Postman

SQL tooling

Job description

• Location: Toronto, Canada
• Work Model: Hybrid
• Experience: 8+ years
• Domain: Banking / Financial Services

Role Overview

We are looking for an experienced QA Lead to lead functional quality assurance activities for

complex banking and financial applications. The role requires strong hands-on functional and

manual testing expertise, practical test automation experience, database validation skills, and

the ability to lead QA activities across complex enterprise implementations.

The QA Lead will own end-to-end test coverage across backend processes, APIs, integrations,

file-based workflows, batch processing, and data validation. The role will work closely with

developers, business analysts, product teams, technical consultants, and other QA engineers to

ensure high-quality releases.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead functional, regression, integration, system, and end-to-end testing for complex applications.
• Analyze business and technical requirements and identify test scenarios, coverage gaps, and quality risks.
• Develop and maintain test plans, test scenarios, test cases, traceability matrices, test evidence, execution reports, and release-quality summaries.
• Perform database and backend validation using SQL.
• Validate APIs and service integrations using tools such as Postman.
• Develop, maintain, and execute automated UI, API, and backend tests.
• Test batch processing systems, scheduled jobs, dependencies, restart/recovery scenarios, and batch reconciliation.
• Validate Kafka message flows, topics, payloads, and event-driven integrations.
• Perform ETL testing, source-to-target validation, transformation validation, and data reconciliation.
• Lead defect analysis, triage, resolution tracking, and retesting.
• Estimate QA effort, plan test execution, identify risks, and communicate quality status.
• Mentor junior QA engineers and improve QA practices, reusable test assets, and automation coverage.
• Contribute to AI-assisted QA and use of GenAI to improve testing efficiency and coverage.

Required Skills

• 8+ years of QA experience.
• Strong hands-on functional/manual testing experience.
• Strong test automation experience.
• Experience with batch processing and data-intensive systems.
• Experience with Kafka and event-driven systems.
• Experience with ETL/data pipeline testing.
• Strong SQL and database validation experience.
• Experience with Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, Rest Assured, Java, Python, or equivalent technologies.
• Experience with Git, Jenkins, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Exposure to Azure, Kubernetes, microservices, and cloud-native environments.
• Experience with API testing, particularly REST APIs.
• Exposure to AI-assisted testing/GenAI testing tools.
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, communication, and leadership skills.
• Banking or financial services experience is strongly preferred.