Director, Quality Engineering

Welcome to the intersection of energy and home services. At NRG were driven by our passion to create a smarter cleaner and more connected future.

Vivint Smart Home an NRG owned company is a leading smart home company in the United States dedicated to redefining the home experience with intelligent products and services. We find purpose in proactively protecting and keeping our customers connected to home no matter where they are. Join the Smart Home team to create smarter safer and more sustainable homes.

Role Summary

In the Age of AI quality isnt a phase or a team at the endits a capability built in by design. Were seeking a Director of Quality Engineering (QE) to lead our transformation from traditional manual QA to a developercentric AIaugmented riskbased QE model across multiple product verticals (mobile apps device/firmware and platform/services). This leader partners closely with Engineering Product Release and our Vertical Quality Leads (VQLs) to prevent defects early accelerate flow and raise the bar on reliability accessibility and customer trust. You will redefine culture talent tooling and metricsowning the strategy operating model and outcomes that make quality everyones job with QE as the architects of prevention and stewards of risk.

What Youll Do

1. Cultural reset: Gatekeepers Architects

• • Reauthor the mission of quality from find bugs to prevent defects and accelerate delivery; codify behaviors responsibilities and rituals that embed quality at design time. Leverage VQLs (Principal Quality Leads) to represent vertical quality in executive forums and drive collective accountability across disciplines including in Product Engineering etc.
  • Establish a Team One operating model: colocate QEs within product squads; ensure participation in discovery architecture reviews threat modeling and risk sizingnot just release checkpoints.

1. Talent strategy: Upskill for AIaugmented QE

• • Build a competency framework and learning paths for three personas: Builders (QE Leads with strong coding) Domain Strategists (deep product knowledge exploratory excellence) and Legacy Testers (with targeted transition plans).
  • Deploy AIaugmented workflows (prompting patterns for test generation testdata synthesis and log/trace analysis) so engineers focus on logic and risk.
  • Strong technical background to partner with Engineering and the Automation Director (e.g. understanding when and why frameworks like Playwright/Cypress/Appium are used) without needing to design or write automation. Able to guide quality strategy risk-based coverage and AIaugmented QE practices across verticals.

1. Shiftleft (for real) & SDLC integration

• • Precommit quality: Require test hooks/observability points at design time; QEs help define seams for automation and telemetry before a line of code is written.
  • AI policy in PRs: Configure AIassisted static checks and PR gates for reliability/maintainability rules; QEs own guardrail policies and exemptions.
  • Definition of Done 2.0: A story is done only when automated checks (unit/component/E2E where appropriate) AIgenerated edgecase coverage and accessibility baselines are in place and green. QE/VQLs coown release criteria and QRDs.

1. Platform & tooling: Selfhealing evidencedriven

• • Stand up an AInative test platform (visual AI/selfhealing selectors changeimpact analysis and intelligent retries) to reduce maintenance toil and flakiness.
  • Synthetic data at scale: Provide compliant scenariorich datasets instantly to eliminate environment/data bottlenecks.
  • Standardize ALM/test management (Jira Xray/TestRail/Zephyr) dashboards and evidence discipline (traceability result artifacts) across verticals and vendor teams.

1. Observability & Release governance

• • Instrument quality telemetry (test effectiveness Defect Removal Efficiency/escapes defect rate cycle time change failure rate) and run release readiness reviews with VQLs Functional Managers and Release Managers.
  • Drive corrective and preventive actions when quality telemetry trends against set standards; ensure auditready traceability and evidence.

1. VQL partnership & Vertical leadership

• • Coauthor Vertical Quality Plans with VQLs: risk models KPIs and release criteria per domain; act as an escalation point for crossvertical quality risks.
  • Represent vertical quality in executive forums enabling transparent tradeoffs and clear go/nogo calls with defensible evidence.

1. Vendor effectiveness & operating cadence

• • Define playbooks SLAs and calibration for partner teams; ensure consistent standards tooling hygiene and audit readiness.
  • Run a Lean waste audit cadence to quantify maintenance toil (flaky tests environment issues data waits) and redirect capacity via AI/platform improvements.

How Youll Measure Success (KPIs)

• Escaped Defect Rate (EDR) trending down across verticals; Defect Removal Efficiency (DRE) trending up.
• Cycle time (Commit Deploy) reduced without eroding reliability; improved change failure rate (CFR) and MTTR due to better prevention and faster diagnosis.
• Automation coverage vs. risk: Coverage is targeted to highvalue highrisk pathsnot test everything.
• Accessibility conformance baselines and improvement per release (Section 508/WCAG 2.2 AA).
• Signal quality of dashboards: fewer flaky tests higher passrate integrity actionable reports in Jira/Xray/TestRail with clear traceability to requirements and risks.

Required Qualifications

• 12 years in Software Quality/Engineering with 5 years leading multiteam or multiproduct quality organizations ideally in consumer IoT or devicecloud ecosystems.
• Demonstrated success transforming QA QE: culture change org design upskilling platform/tooling modernization and KPI rearchitecture.
• Expertise in riskbased test strategy exploratory testing AIassisted test development and integrating quality signals across CI/CD. Owns release criteria/QRDs and go/nogo rigor with VQLs/Functional Managers/Automation Leads/Release Management.
• Familiarity with modern test frameworks and languages (e.g. Playwright/Cypress WebDriver/Appium; TypeScript/JavaScript Python or Java).
• Strong command of ALM/test management (Jira Xray/TestRail/Zephyr) and evidence/traceability practices; vendor management with measurable outcomes.
• Proven ability to instrument and interpret telemetry (logs traces metrics) and to partner with SRE/Platform for observability.
• Bachelors degree in an Engineering discipline (e.g. Computer Science Computer Engineering Electrical/Computer Engineering or related field). Advanced degree a plus.

Preferred Qualifications & Credentials

• ISTQB Advanced Level (Test Manager Test Analyst or Technical Test Analyst) and/or Certified Software Quality Analyst (CSQA).
• Agile certifications (CSM PSM) and/or scaled frameworks (SAFe).
• Lean Six Sigma (Green/Black Belt) with demonstrated use in reducing waste and cycle time.
• Accessibility expertise with working knowledge of WCAG 2.2 AA and Section 508 including tooling (e.g. axe Lighthouse NVDA/JAWS VoiceOver).
• Familiarity with AI/ML in testing (e.g. selfhealing locators test generation change impact analysis) and responsible AI guardrails for PR checks.
• Experience in regulated or securitysensitive domains; knowledge of secure SDLC privacy and compliance best practices.

Ways of Working

• Operates as a servantleader who builds psychological safety while setting a high bar for engineering rigor and accountability.
• Communicates crisply with executives and engineers alike; translates telemetry into decisions and clear tradeoffs.
• Drives an inspectandadapt cadence: quarterly Vertical Quality Plans monthly waste audits weekly signal reviews and daily squad rituals.

Location & Work Model

• In office Lehi UT with periodic travel to key engineering hubs (as needed for planning release readiness reviews and vendor calibration).

Equal Opportunity Employer

Vivint Smart Home an NRG company is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.

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NRG Energy is committed to a drug and alcohol-free workplace. To the extent permitted by law and any applicable collective bargaining agreement employees are subject to periodic random drug testing and post-accident and reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol testing. EOE AA M/F/Vet/Disability. Level Title and/or Salary may be adjusted based on the applicants experience or skills.

Official description on file with Talent.