Head of Quality Assurance

Intellect Design Arena Ltd; Chennai; On-site; INR 4,200,000 - 6,200,000; Full time

Job summary

Intellect Design Arena Ltd. is seeking a Head of Quality Assurance to lead the Global Delivery QA function. You will architect end-to-end QA strategy, govern testing standards, define quality gates, and mentor a high-performing team.

This role emphasizes hands-on AI/LLM testing, AI safety benchmarks, and integration with CI/CD pipelines, ensuring defect leakage is prevented and client engagements remain profitable.

Qualifications

• 8–10+ years in Quality Assurance with leadership experience.
• Hands-on AI/MLOps testing and evaluation.
• Strong knowledge of modern test automation tools.

Responsibilities

• Define, institutionalize, and own the end-to-end QA strategy and quality gates across delivery engagements.
• Architect AI evaluation frameworks, datasets, benchmarks, and safety testing for AI agents.
• Drive CI/CD release sign-offs and prevent defect leakage into production.
• Mentor QA engineers and coordinate with Pre-Sales and Architecture for client engagements.
• Manage defect triage, RCA, and KPI tracking across teams.

Skills

QA leadership & strategy

AI/MLOps testing

Quality governance

Communication & stakeholder mgmt

Tools

Selenium

Playwright

Cypress

REST Assured

Jenkins

GitHub Actions

GitLab CI

Job description

We are seeking a highly motivated and experienced Head of Quality Assurance (QA) to play a

crucial "player-coach" role within our Global Delivery function. You will architect the end-to-end

quality governance and test strategy across all client engagements while actively setting up

cutting-edge AI evaluation frameworks and driving hands-on quality gates. This role transitions

our quality ownership from an informal project-level setup into a dedicated, full-time leadership

function. In this role, you will eliminate defect leakage into UAT or production, safeguard project

margins, champion our AI/LLM testing narrative during high-stakes client pitches, and mentor a

high-performing team of QA professionals.

Key Responsibilities

• Define, institutionalize, and own the end-to-end QA strategy, testing standards, defect management workflows, and quality gates across all active delivery engagements to release stability across parallel delivery streams.

Architecting AI Evaluation Frameworks

• Act as the primary authority and hands-on implementor for setting up our AI evaluation framework—including curated test datasets, accuracy benchmarks, guardrail/safety testing, and automated regression suites for AI agents. monitoring, and safety benchmarking for LLM-driven applications.

Test Automation & Release Sign-Off

• Drive test automation strategies integrated directly into modern CI/CD release pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab).
• Serve as the final authority on release readiness, conducting formal quality sign-offs prior to UAT handover and production go-live.
• Actively dive into quality data to identify risk factors, preventing defect leakage into production, eliminating costly rework, and protecting project margins.
• Manage defect triage processes, root-cause analyses (RCA), and preventative action tracking across delivery teams.
• Partner with Pre-Sales and Architecture teams to articulate our QA and AI safety strategies in client RFPs, pitches, and technical workshops.
• Serve as the primary quality Subject Matter Expert (SME) during client steering committees and executive governance reviews.

Audit & Compliance Governance

• Collaborate closely with Corporate Quality to maintain alignment with enterprise governance bodies, ISO/CMMI compliance standards, and regulatory audits.
• Drive continuous quality improvement initiatives across all project teams.
• Mentor and guide QA engineers and test leads by leading by example, fostering a culture of continuous process improvement, automation excellence, and AI-first quality practices.
• Manage QA effort estimation, capacity allocation, and resource planning for new project onboarding and pre-sales proposals.

Qualifications & Candidate Profile

Must-Have

• 8–10+ years of experience in Quality Assurance and Software Testing, with at least 4–5 years of dedicated team leadership or engineering management experience.
• Mandatory hands-on expertise in AI/MLOps and AI testing, including experience with prompt evaluation, vector database validation, guardrail/safety testing, and LLM
• Deep, practical knowledge of modern test automation frameworks (e.g., Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, REST Assured) and integration with CI/CD tools (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab).
• Proven track record in establishing quality gate governance, risk-based test planning, defect metrics tracking, and executing formal release sign-offs.
• Exceptional communication and presentation skills, with the ability to translate complex quality data into actionable business strategies for leadership and client stakeholders.

Strongly Preferred

Insurance, or Lending enterprise platforms.

• Pre-Sales & RFP Leadership: Direct experience collaborating with pre-sales teams, contributing to complex RFP responses, and pitching quality strategies to prospective