Application Quality Assurance Lead

horacemannservicecorporation; Springfield (IL); Hybrid; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Horace Mann Service Corporation seeks an Application Quality Assurance Lead to guide QA efforts across multiple projects. The role combines hands-on testing with team leadership, process improvement, and governance, reporting to the QA Manager.

Hybrid work options in Springfield, IL or Plano, TX support collaboration with onshore and offshore teams. The ideal candidate brings 8+ years in software QA, 5+ years leading teams, and strong automation/AI testing experience, plus excellent

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent professional experience).
• Eight or more years of software quality assurance experience.
• Five or more years leading QA activities or teams.
• Experience in Agile/Scrum environments and supporting enterprise software implementations.
• Experience leading onshore and offshore QA resources.
• Strong knowledge of test planning, execution, defect management, risk assessment, and release readiness.
• Experience with test automation and AI-assisted testing.
• Insurance industry experience is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute project test strategies, plans, schedules, and resource estimates.
• Define testing scope, objectives, risks, dependencies, environments, and entry/exit criteria.
• Review requirements for clarity, testability, and coverage.
• Review test scenarios and regression suites; ensure traceability.
• Coordinate functional, system integration, regression, end-to-end, and UAT testing.
• Lead defect triage; monitor aging, severity, and SLA compliance.
• Mentor QA analysts; promote QA standards and best practices.
• Promote automation and AI-assisted testing; drive shift-left and continuous improvement.
• Prepare release-readiness assessments and progress reports.

Skills

QA Leadership

Agile/Scrum

Test planning

Defect management

Automation

AI-assisted testing

Communication

Mentoring

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering

Tools

Azure DevOps

Jira

UFT

Selenium

Playwright

Postman

SoapUI

Excel

Power BI

Job description

Job Title: Application Quality Assurance Lead

Location: Hybrid - Springfield, IL OR Plano, TX office

Position Summary

The IT Quality Assurance (ITQA) Lead is responsible for leading quality assurance activities across one or more business areas by working on multiple projects that require in-depth knowledge across multiple technical areas and business segments.

The QA Lead provides leadership to QA Analysts, coordinates test planning and execution, manages defects, and works closely with Business Analysts, Developers, Product Owners, and Project Managers to deliver high-quality software. The QA Lead also acts as a change agent for identifies gaps and opportunities, promotes best practices and use of automation to increase QA effectiveness and reducing cost of operations. The QA lead will report and work closely with the QA Manager.

The role combines hands-on testing expertise with team leadership, process improvement, reporting, and quality governance.

Key Responsibilities:

Test Strategy and Execution

• Develop and execute project test strategies, plans, schedules, and resource estimates.
• Define testing scope, objectives, risks, dependencies, environments, and entry/exit criteria.
• Review business and functional requirements for clarity, testability, and coverage.
• Review test scenarios, cases, data, regression suites, and traceability.
• Coordinate functional, system integration, regression, end-to-end, and user acceptance testing.
• Support test-data creation, environment readiness, deployment requests, and technical issue resolution.

Defect and Risk Management

• Lead defect triage meetings and ensure defects are accurately documented, prioritized, assigned, and resolved.
• Monitor defect aging, severity, root-cause documentation, and SLA compliance.
• Identify and elevate risks involving schedules, environments, test data, resources, requirements, defects, and release readiness.
• Recommend practical mitigation strategies and communicate quality risks to stakeholders.

Team Leadership and Governance

• Lead QA stand-ups and assign work across onshore and offshore team members.
• Mentor junior analysts and support the onboarding of new QA resources.
• Promote consistent QA standards, templates, processes, and best practices.
• Conduct peer reviews of testing artifacts and verify that deliverables meet quality expectations.
• Maintain QA repositories, test assets, reusable utilities, and knowledge-sharing materials.
• Drive shift-left testing, risk-based testing, continuous improvement, and process compliance.

Automation, Reporting, and Collaboration

• Identify and prioritize test-automation opportunities.
• Partner with automation engineers on script development, optimization, maintenance, and failure analysis.
• Promote the effective use of automation and AI-assisted tools throughout the software testing lifecycle.
• Prepare daily and weekly QA reporting covering execution progress, test coverage, defects, risks, and team performance.
• Provide release-readiness assessments, including regression results, open risks, pending items, and go/no-go recommendations.
• Serve as the primary QA contact for project execution, issues, risks, and status.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field-or equivalent professional experience.
• Eight or more years of software quality assurance experience.
• Five or more years leading QA activities or teams.
• Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments and supporting enterprise software implementations.
• Experience leading onshore and offshore QA resources.
• Strong knowledge of test planning, execution, defect management, risk assessment, and release readiness.
• Experience with test automation and AI-assisted testing.
• Insurance industry experience is preferred.

Technical Experience

Experience with one or more of the following:

• Test and defect management: Azure DevOps, Jira.
• Automation: UFT, Selenium, Playwright.
• API testing: Postman or SoapUI
• Reporting: Excel or Power BI
• AI-assisted tools: ChatGPT or similar platforms

Leadership Competencies

• Strong communication and stakeholder-management skills
• Coaching and mentoring
• Decision-making and problem-solving
• Conflict resolution
• Organization and planning
• Risk assessment
• Continuous-improvement mindset

Preferred Certifications

• ISTQB Advanced Level
• Azure DevOps
• Test/QA Management
• Scrum Agile

Measures of Success

The successful ITQA Lead will:

• Deliver testing activities on schedule and on budget.
• Ensure comprehensive test coverage and requirements traceability.
• Help prevent defects introduction and reduce escaped defects.
• Provide accurate quality metrics and release-readiness recommendations.
• Lead defect management effectively across cross-functional teams.
• Mentor QA team members and strengthen adoption of QA standards.
• Expand appropriate use of automation and AI-assisted testing.
• Build strong partnerships across development, business, pro