Engineering Manager Central Europe

Zoolatech; Warszawa; Hybrid; PLN 300,000 - 450,000; Full time

Job summary

Zoolatech is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead offshore QA teams coordinating with onshore mobile development squads for iOS/Android. You will ensure quality is built in, not tested in later stages, and act as a hands-on leader with accountability across cross-timezone partners.

The role requires deep experience in mobile delivery, test strategy, and CI/CD integrations, with a focus on reducing flaky tests, improving triage, and delivering reliable releases from Poland, preferably Warsaw,

Qualifications

• 8+ years in software engineering or QA.
• 3+ years managing engineers (including managers-of-leads or multiple sub-teams).
• Proven QA/quality engineering leadership for mobile apps (iOS/Android) with large user base.
• Experience working across distributed, multi-time-zone teams (offshore/nearshore vs onshore).
• Hands-on familiarity with mobile delivery lifecycle: sprint cadence, release trains, staged rollouts, app store processes.

Responsibilities

• Act as single point of accountability for QA–dev agreements: ready/done criteria, bug triage SLAs, handoffs, escalation paths.
• Embed QA early in lifecycle: refinement participation, three-amigos, acceptance criteria reviews, design walkthroughs.
• Design async-first comms across time zones: handoffs, dashboards, overnight test runs ownership.
• Run cross-team quality forums: quality sync, release readiness, defect retrospectives.
• Reduce friction between QA and squads; build trust and reduce ambiguous bugs, flaky tests, late builds.

Skills

QA leadership

Mobile apps

Cross-timezone collaboration

Release planning

Defect triage

Test strategy

CI/CD

Tools

Jira

TestRail

GitHub Actions

Jenkins

Bitrise

XCUITest

Espresso

Job description

The Engineering Manager owns the working relationship between our offshore QA team and the client's onshore mobile development squads, so that quality is built into delivery rather than inspected at the end. This is a hands-on leadership role: part people manager, part process owner, part cross-timezone diplomat.

Location / hours: Poland (preferably Warsaw). Core hours overlap with the onshore team: 9am-midday PST, with flexibility for releases

Product context: A major, widely used consumer mobile app on iOS and Android with frequent releases and a large, diverse device and OS footprint

Responsibilities

Cross-team collaboration (core of the role)

Act as the single point of accountability for QA–dev working agreements: definition of ready/done, bug triage SLAs, handoff expectations, escalation paths

Embed QA earlier in the lifecycle: QA participation in refinement, three-amigos sessions, acceptance criteria reviews and design walkthroughs

Design async-first communication across time zones: written handoffs, shared dashboards, clear ownership of overnight test runs and morning status

Run recurring forums that fix problems rather than report them: cross-team quality sync, release readiness review, escape/defect retrospectives

Resolve friction between QA and squads early (ambiguous bug reports, flaky tests, late builds, scope changes) and build lasting trust on both sides

Quality and release delivery

Partner with squad EMs and tech leads on release trains, regression scope, go/no-go criteria and hotfix procedures

Drive a risk-based test strategy for iOS and Android, including device/OS coverage, accessibility, localization and performance

Champion test automation (UI, API, contract) and CI/CD integration so feedback reaches developers in minutes, not days

Reduce flaky tests and escaped defects through root-cause analysis and shared ownership between QA and developers

People leadership

Manage, coach and grow the offshore QA engineers and leads: goals, performance feedback, career paths, hiring and onboarding

Build a culture where QA engineers are seen as engineering partners with a voice in product decisions

Maintain team health and capacity planning; prevent burnout during release crunches

Governance and reporting

Define and report quality metrics to client leadership and our delivery leadership (see success metrics below)

Keep the client relationship healthy: proactive status, transparent risks, clear communication of trade-offs

Contribute to continuous improvement of tooling, templates and playbooks that can be reused across the account

Requirements

Candidates who miss any of these will struggle in the role, so we screen on them first.

Experience

8+ years in software engineering or QA, with 3+ years managing engineers (ideally including managers-of-leads or multiple sub-teams)

Proven track record leading QA or quality engineering for mobile applications (iOS and/or Android) shipped to a large user base

Direct experience working across distributed, multi-time-zone teams, ideally between an offshore/nearshore vendor team and onshore product engineering

Hands- on familiarity with the mobile delivery lifecycle: sprint cadence, release trains, staged rollouts, app store submission and hotfix handling

Technical credibility

Solid understanding of test strategy and test pyramid for mobile: unit, integration, UI, API, device-farm and exploratory testing

Working knowledge of test automation frameworks and practices (e.g., XCUITest, Espresso, or equivalents), enough to review architecture and challenge approach

Experience with CI/CD pipelines, defect tracking and test management tools (e.g., Jira, TestRail, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Bitrise)

Able to speak the language of developers: code review basics, build and release pipelines, crash analytics and observability

Collaboration and leadership

Demonstrated ability to improve QA–dev collaboration, with concrete examples such as shortened feedback loops, fewer escaped defects or better triage

Strong written and verbal English; skilled at clear, concise async communication

Able to influence without authority: comfortable pushing back respectfully on engineering managers and product leads

Coaching mindset: has grown junior and mid-level engineers, handled underperformance and built team cohesion

Data-driven: defines, tracks and acts on quality and delivery metrics

Comfortable in a client-facing role, including executive-level status reporting and escalation handling

These raise a candidate's ranking but should not rule anyone out.

Prior experience as an SDET or mobile developer, which gives credibility with squads and helps with test architecture decisions

Experience at a product company or on the client side of a vendor relationship, for empathy with the squad's perspective

Familiarity with shift-left and shift-right practices: feature flags, canary releases, A/B testing, production monitoring and crash-free-rate targets

Exposure to AI-assisted testing tools, test generation or intelligent test selection, and a view on where they help or hurt