Principal QA Lead

Principal QA Lead

Role Overview

Mozark is hiring a Principal QA Lead to establish the end-to-end CI/CD quality gate framework across our three product lines -Digital Connectivity (5GMark) TestAI Platform and the Agentic Data Platform -and to be the single accountable owner of customer-found defect rate as a top-line engineering metric.

This is a senior strategic role for an engineer-leader who has built quality systems from the ground up. You will partner with DevSecOps Product and Engineering Leads to embed quality at every stage of the SDLC mature our automation backbone and ensure that what reaches our customers platforms is enterprise-grade and sovereignty-ready.

The role is a peer to other Principal-level engineering leaders and reports directly to the CTO.

What You Will Do

Build the CI/CD Quality Gate Framework

• Design and roll out the SDLC quality gate framework: code quality unit / integration / end-to-end coverage performance security accessibility and release readiness.

• Define entry and exit criteria for each pipeline stage and enforce them in CI/CD; own "stop-the-line" authority on quality regressions.

• Partner with DevSecOps to integrate SAST DAST SCA and runtime checks into a single unified pipeline -quality and security as one gate not two.

• Establish release readiness criteria and gating for production deploys across all three product lines.

Own Customer-Found Defect / Bug Escape Rate

• Be the single accountable owner for production defect escape rate across Digital Connectivity TestAI and Agentic Data.

• Drive root cause analysis on every customer-found bug; convert each RCA into a pipeline gate test asset or process change that prevents recurrence.

• Build feedback loops from production telemetry -and RUM data once available -back into pre-production test design.

• Define and publish a monthly quality scorecard: escape rate mean time to detect mean time to resolve flakiness and coverage trends -visible to engineering product and executive leadership.

Lead Test Automation Strategy

• Set the automation strategy spanning web mobile API performance accessibility security and device-cloud testing.

• Mature our in-house no-code automation platform (Playwright Appium Python / pytest) -both as a Mozark product capability and as the internal engine that tests our own products.

• Drive automation coverage for the device cloud (mobile TV console AR/VR) and the agentic test execution engine.

• Architect a test data strategy including responsible use of the Agentic Synthetic Data engine for internal regression and load testing.

Embed Quality in Engineering Culture

• Shift quality left: developer-owned unit and contract tests pre-merge gates and team-level quality KPIs.

• Mentor QA Leads SDETs and the Customer Engineering function; raise the bar for quality engineering across the org.

• Drive a customer-centric quality lens -what the customer experiences is the only definition of quality that counts.

Compliance & Sovereignty Quality

• Ensure quality processes meet BFSI regulatory expectations (RBI / Fed / EBA) EU accessibility standards (WCAG) and sovereignty-ready deployment requirements.

• Build compliance test suites that customers and regulators can rely on as audit evidence.

What We're Looking For

• 12 years in QA Quality Engineering or SDET roles with at least 4 years at a Principal Staff or equivalent senior-IC level.

• Has built a CI/CD quality gate framework from the ground up at scale -ideally across multiple product lines or business units.

• A demonstrable named record of reducing customer-found defect rate or bug escape rate -not as a participant but as the accountable owner.

• Strong programming background in Python and JavaScript / TypeScript; comfortable in code reviews and writing framework-level tooling.

• Deep hands-on experience with modern automation: Playwright Appium pytest k6 or JMeter Axe OWASP ZAP.

• Experience integrating quality gates with DevSecOps in CI/CD (GitHub Actions GitLab CI Jenkins or similar).

• Comfortable with senior-stakeholder reporting

• Strong leadership and mentoring track record -can attract and grow talent

Success in This Role

• Year 1: CI/CD quality gate framework live across all three product lines with documented entry / exit criteria adopted by every engineering team.

• A measurable sustained reduction in customer-found defect rate within 12 months -with the methodology and instrumentation to prove it.

• Automation coverage and reliability targets met for each product line baselined against the Q2 2026 architecture review.

• Compliance test suites for BFSI (RBI / Fed / EBA) and EU accessibility (WCAG) shipped adopted and surfaced to customers as differentiation.

• A retained high-trust QA and SDET function regarded by engineering and product as a quality partner -not a downstream gate.