Lead Quality Assurance Engineer

Brooksource; Cleveland (OH); On-site; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Brooksource in Cleveland, OH, is seeking a Lead QA Engineer to join our growing technology team. The role blends hands-on testing with strategic leadership to shape QA vision, testing frameworks, and quality standards.

The ideal candidate has substantial automation experience, a track record mentoring engineers, and a passion for continuous improvement across the software development lifecycle. You will drive quality initiatives, collaborate with Product and Engineering, and advance CI/CD

Qualifications

• 7+ years in Software Quality Assurance, Quality Engineering, or Software Testing.
• 2+ years leading QA initiatives, mentoring teams, or serving in a QA Lead capacity.
• Strong understanding of software testing standards, methodologies, tools, and processes.
• Demonstrated experience working in Agile development environments.
• Excellent analytical, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills.
• Strong written and verbal communication with ability to influence stakeholders.
• Proven ability to collaborate effectively across cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead the overall QA strategy, testing methodology, and best practices across multiple applications and projects.
• Serve as a technical leader and mentor for QA engineers, providing guidance on automation frameworks, testing approaches, and quality standards.
• Design, develop, and maintain automated test solutions for web applications, APIs, and integrated systems.
• Partner closely with Product Managers, Developers, Business Analysts, and stakeholders to ensure quality is built into the development process.
• Evaluate and recommend testing tools, frameworks, and processes to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
• Establish test plans, test cases, test data, and test execution strategies for functional, regression, integration, system, and performance testing.
• Lead defect triage activities and ensure timely resolution of quality issues.
• Drive risk-based testing strategies and metrics-driven quality reporting.
• Support CI/CD initiatives and integrate automated testing into deployment pipelines.
• Champion continuous improvement initiatives within QA and the broader engineering organization.

Skills

QA leadership

Mentoring

Agile development

Communication skills

Cross-functional collaboration

Analytical thinking

Problem solving

Tools

Jira

Confluence

GitHub

GitHub Actions

Playwright

TypeScript

Cucumber

TestNG

Maven

SQL

Oracle

REST APIs

Postman

Rest Assured

Gatling

JMeter

Job description

We are seeking a Lead QA Engineer to join a growing technology team in Cleveland, OH. This individual will play a dual role as both a hands‑on quality assurance engineer and a strategic leader responsible for shaping the organization's QA vision, testing frameworks, and quality standards. The ideal candidate will bring strong automation expertise, experience leading QA initiatives, and a passion for mentoring team members while driving continuous improvement across the software development lifecycle.

Responsibilities

• Lead the overall QA strategy, testing methodology, and best practices across multiple applications and projects.
• Serve as a technical leader and mentor for QA engineers, providing guidance on automation frameworks, testing approaches, and quality standards.
• Design, develop, and maintain automated test solutions for web applications, APIs, and integrated systems.
• Partner closely with Product Managers, Developers, Business Analysts, and stakeholders to ensure quality is built into the development process.
• Evaluate and recommend testing tools, frameworks, and processes to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
• Establish test plans, test cases, test data, and test execution strategies for functional, regression, integration, system, and performance testing.
• Lead defect triage activities and ensure timely resolution of quality issues.
• Drive risk-based testing strategies and metrics-driven quality reporting.
• Support CI/CD initiatives and integrate automated testing into deployment pipelines.
• Champion continuous improvement initiatives within QA and the broader engineering organization.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in Software Quality Assurance, Quality Engineering, or Software Testing.
• 2+ years of experience leading QA initiatives, mentoring team members, or serving in a QA Lead capacity.
• Strong understanding of software testing standards, methodologies, tools, and processes.
• Demonstrated experience working in Agile development environments.
• Excellent analytical, troubleshooting, and problem‑solving skills.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to influence technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Proven ability to collaborate effectively across cross‑functional teams.

Technical Requirements

• Strong automation testing experience using:
• Java
• Playwright with TypeScript
• Cucumber
• TestNG
• Maven
• Experience with QA and collaboration tools:
• Jira
• Confluence
• GitHub
• GitHub Actions
• Database and backend testing experience:
• SQL
• Oracle
• Web Services
• REST APIs
• Performance testing experience using:
• Apache JMeter
• Postman
• Rest Assured
• Gatling
• Additional technical expertise:
• Systems integration testing
• Data analysis and validation
• SDLC methodologies
• CI/CD practices
• Version control tools (GitHub)
• BDD and TDD methodologies

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building or modernizing enterprise QA automation frameworks.
• Experience defining QA roadmaps and testing standards across teams.
• Experience managing testing efforts within DevOps environments.
• Ability to balance strategic leadership responsibilities with hands‑on testing execution.

What We're Looking For

This role is ideal for a senior QA professional who enjoys remaining technical while also driving the broader quality vision for an organization. The Lead QA Engineer will be expected to help determine how testing is performed, recommend and implement tools and frameworks, mentor other QA engineers, and ensure quality remains a core component of the software delivery process.