QA Chapter Lead

Lever, Inc.; Portugal; Remote; EUR 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully remote Europe-wide

Senior technical leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Influence over QA standards

Work with multiple squads

International fintech exposure

Structured recruitment

Diversity and inclusion

Impact on reliability and security

Job summary

Lever, Inc. in Portugal seeks a senior QA Chapter Lead to blend hands-on engineering with QA strategy across multiple squads. You’ll be embedded in one squad while shaping QA standards, automation, and testing practices across the wider engineering function.

You will define acceptance criteria with Product Owners, own the Definition of Done quality gate, and lead a QA Guild to align standards and tooling across teams in a fintech‑driven environment operating across Europe.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in software QA with leadership exposure
• Strong automation and test code quality for CI environments
• Deep API testing experience (REST, contract, integration)
• Experience defining QA standards in Agile teams
• Embedded QA contributor across the lifecycle, not just gatekeepers
• Good understanding of Java backend testing and system architecture

Responsibilities

• Embed as senior QA engineer within one squad, participate in sprint ceremonies
• Define and agree acceptance criteria with Product Owners for each sprint
• Design, write, and improve automated test suites across unit/integration/E2E
• Own Definition of Done quality gate and ensure release criteria are met
• Define QA standards, test pyramid, tooling, and CI gates
• Establish onboarding and baseline QA expectations for engineers
• Lead monthly QA Guild with Chapter Lead to align standards
• Select and maintain QA frameworks and tools
• Identify opportunities to improve testing technologies
• Monitor QA health: coverage, flaky tests, backlogs, risks
• Collaborate with engineering leadership to address cross-team quality issues
• Promote proactive QA culture integrated from development start

Skills

Automation engineering

API testing

CI/CD

Quality ownership

Tools

REST Assured

JUnit

Job description

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a QA Chapter Lead based in Portugal.

This is a senior technical QA leadership role combining hands‑on engineering with responsibility for quality standards across multiple engineering squads. You’ll be embedded directly within one squad while also shaping QA strategy, automation, tooling, and testing practices across the wider engineering function. You’ll influence how quality is built into the development lifecycle, from acceptance criteria and automated testing to Definition of Done standards and CI quality gates. The role offers significant technical ownership without traditional people‑management responsibilities. You’ll collaborate with QA engineers, Product Owners, Tech Leads, and engineering leadership in an Agile environment. This is an opportunity to establish scalable QA practices and directly improve the reliability and quality of complex, data‑driven financial products.

Accountabilities:

• Work as an embedded senior QA engineer within one engineering squad, actively participating in sprint planning, daily standups, reviews, retrospectives, and other squad ceremonies.
• Define and agree on clear acceptance criteria with Product Owners before work enters each sprint.
• Design, write, maintain, and improve automated test suites across appropriate levels, including unit, integration, and end‑to‑end testing.
• Own the squad’s Definition of Done quality gate and ensure agreed quality criteria are consistently met before releases.
• Define and maintain QA standards across the engineering function, including test‑pyramid principles, automation tooling, naming conventions, coverage thresholds, and CI quality gates.
• Establish onboarding processes and baseline QA expectations for engineers joining the chapter.
• Lead a monthly QA Guild with the counterpart Chapter Lead to align standards, tooling, frameworks, and Definition of Done practices across engineering.
• Own the selection, evaluation, evolution, and documentation of QA automation frameworks and tools.
• Identify opportunities to introduce, improve, or retire testing technologies based on engineering needs and effectiveness.
• Monitor and report on QA chapter health, including coverage trends, flaky‑test rates, automation backlogs, and systemic quality risks.
• Partner with engineering leadership to identify and address quality issues that affect multiple teams or the wider platform.
• Promote a proactive quality culture in which QA is integrated into development from the beginning rather than treated as a final‑stage validation function.

Requirements:

• 5+ years of professional software QA experience, including at least 2 years in a Lead QA role with responsibility for test strategy across multiple teams.
• Strong automation engineering skills and the ability to write maintainable, readable, production‑quality test code that runs reliably in CI environments.
• Deep experience with API testing, including REST APIs, contract testing, integration testing, and backend‑focused test design.
• Proven experience defining and maintaining QA standards within Agile product or engineering teams.
• Experience working as an embedded QA contributor throughout the development lifecycle rather than operating solely as a final quality gate.
• Strong understanding of Java‑based backend environments, including the ability to read Java code, understand system architecture, and create effective tests for backend functionality.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to influence engineering teams and drive consistency across squads without direct line‑management authority.
• High level of technical ownership, analytical thinking, attention to detail, and commitment to engineering quality.

Strongly preferred:

• Experience in fintech, payments, digital financial services, or another environment where reliability and transaction integrity are critical.
• Experience with performance and load testing, including API concurrency, throughput, and identifying scalability issues before production.
• Mobile application testing experience, particularly Android.
• Experience establishing or evolving a QA chapter, guild, community of practice, or similar cross‑team QA structure.
• Familiarity with AI‑assisted testing tools for test‑case generation, regression triage, synthetic test data creation, or related QA workflows.

Benefits:

• Fully remote working opportunity within Europe.
• Senior technical leadership scope without traditional line‑management responsibilities.
• Opportunity to combine hands‑on QA engineering with cross‑functional technical leadership.
• Significant influence over QA standards, automation frameworks, testing strategy, and engineering quality practices.
• Collaboration with multiple engineering squads and senior technology stakeholders.
• Opportunity to shape scalable QA practices across a growing international technology organization.
• Exposure to complex fintech and financial‑services products operating across multiple international markets.
• Structured recruitment process designed to move efficiently for the right candidate.
• Equal‑opportunity environment focused on building a diverse and inclusive team.
• Opportunity to work on technology where reliability, security, and quality have a direct impact on customers and financial services.

We appreciate your interest and wish you the best!