QA Lead

Ascentt; Indore District; On-site; INR 1,500,000 - 2,800,000; Full time

Job summary

Ascentt is seeking an experienced QA Lead to own test strategy, automation and release quality for a global automotive platform. You will lead an offshore QA team in a distributed onsite/offshore model and collaborate daily with US-based leads, developers and product stakeholders to ensure well-tested releases.

Responsibilities include defining test strategy, building automation, integrating tests in CI/CD, mentoring the team, and delivering clear quality metrics across time zones.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software QA experience including team leadership.
• Ability to define test strategy, test plans and estimates for enterprise applications.
• Hands-on automation experience with Selenium WebDriver, Playwright or Cypress (Java/Python).
• Strong API testing experience with Postman and REST Assured.

Responsibilities

• Define and own test strategy, plans, estimates and quality gates for platform releases.
• Design and maintain UI and API test automation frameworks.
• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines for fast, reliable regression runs.
• Lead and mentor offshore QA team; review cases and automation code.
• Drive functional, regression and UAT cycles with SQL data validation.
• Run defect triage with developers, track fixes to closure and report metrics.
• Participate in Agile ceremonies and provide QA estimates and risk flags.
• Document QA approaches so knowledge transfers across onsite/offshore teams.

Skills

Test automation

Selenium WebDriver

Playwright

API testing

SQL

CI/CD

Jira/Xray/Zephyr

English communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/IT or related

Tools

Postman

REST Assured

JUnit/TestNG

Jenkins

GitHub Actions

Azure DevOps

Docker/Kubernetes

Job description

Ascentt is building cutting-edge data analytics & AI/ML solutions for global automotive and manufacturing leaders. We turn enterprise data into real-time decisions using advanced machine learning and GenAI. Our team solves hard engineering problems at scale, with real-world industry impact. We’re hiring passionate builders to shape the future of industrial intelligence.

QA Lead

Location: Indore, Pune
Experience: 8+ years (2+ years leading a QA team)
Work from Office Monday to Friday

About The Role

We are seeking an experienced QA Lead to own test strategy, automation and release quality on a large-scale enterprise platform delivered for a global automotive client.

The QA Lead will lead an offshore QA team within a distributed onsite/offshore model, partnering daily with US-based technical leads, developers and product stakeholders to ensure every release is well-tested, predictable and delivered on sprint commitments.

What You Will Do

• Define and own the test strategy, test plans, estimates and quality gates for platform releases.
• Design, build and maintain UI and API test automation frameworks (Selenium/Playwright, REST Assured) using Java or Python.
• Integrate automated test suites into CI/CD pipelines so that regression runs are fast, repeatable and trusted.
• Lead, mentor and allocate work across the offshore QA team; review test cases and automation code to keep the bar high.
• Drive functional, regression, integration, system and UAT test cycles, including backend and data validation using SQL.
• Run defect triage with developers and product, drive root-cause analysis and track fixes through to closure.
• Track and report quality metrics — coverage, defect leakage, pass rates — and provide clear go/no-go recommendations for releases.
• Participate in Agile ceremonies — sprint planning, backlog refinement, daily stand-ups and reviews — providing realistic QA estimates and flagging risk early.
• Document test approaches, frameworks and QA processes so that knowledge is transferable across the onsite and offshore team.
• Collaborate proactively across time zones with US-based leads, developers and product, communicating quality status and blockers without needing to be chased.

A Note on Hands-On Leadership

This is a hands-on lead role. The QA Lead is expected to write and maintain automation alongside the team, not only coordinate testing. Candidates should be able to walk through a framework they personally built or maintained, explain the design choices behind it, and write or debug a test live.

Required Qualifications

What We Are Looking For

• 8+ years of software QA experience, including 2+ years leading or mentoring a QA team.
• Proven ability to define test strategy, test plans and estimates for enterprise applications.
• Strong hands-on test automation with Selenium WebDriver, Playwright or Cypress using Java or Python.
• Solid API testing experience with Postman and REST Assured, including microservices-based systems.
• Experience with TestNG/JUnit and BDD frameworks such as Cucumber.
• Good SQL skills for backend and data validation against relational databases.
• Experience integrating tests into CI/CD tooling such as Jenkins, GitHub Actions or Azure DevOps, with Git-based workflows.
• Experience with defect and test management in Jira (Xray, Zephyr or similar).
• Experience delivering in Agile/Scrum teams within a distributed onsite/offshore model.
• Excellent written and verbal English communication, with the ability to work directly with US-based leads and stakeholders across time zones.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering or a related discipline.

Preferred / Differentiating Qualifications

• Performance and load testing experience with JMeter, Gatling or k6.
• Mobile test automation experience with Appium.
• Contract testing and microservices test approaches; exposure to Docker/Kubernetes.
• Experience testing on cloud platforms such as AWS or Azure.
• Awareness of security testing basics and test data management practices.
• Experience testing large-scale enterprise platforms; ISTQB certification (Foundation or Advanced Test Manager) is a plus.

Characteristics of the Person We Are Looking For

• Genuinely hands-on. Builds and maintains automation, not just test plans.
• A leader. Grows the team, sets standards and holds the quality bar without micromanaging.
• A clear communicator. Explains quality risk plainly in English, in writing and on a call, to onsite leads and non-engineers alike.
• Detail-oriented. Catches the edge cases others miss and insists on evidence before sign-off.
• A strong investigator. Reproduces issues reliably, reasons from logs and data, and pinpoints root cause with developers.
• Proactive across time zones. Surfaces risks and progress early rather than going quiet between stand-ups.
• Pragmatic. Balances test coverage against delivery reality and knows where risk-based testing is the right call.

What Success Looks Like

A successful QA Lead delivers predictable, well-tested releases with low defect leakage. Automation coverage grows sprint over sprint, regression is fast and trusted, and quality status is clear and credible to onsite leads. The offshore QA team becomes a self-sufficient, high-performing unit rather than a bottleneck.