QA Lead | Atlanta

QA Lead – Digital Commerce & Loyalty Platforms

Location: Atlanta, GA (Mon to Thu in Office)

Job Summary

We are seeking an experienced QA Lead to define, drive, and execute the Quality Engineering strategy for a large-scale digital platform modernization and integration orchestration program within the Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) and e-commerce ecosystem.

This role will lead end-to-end quality assurance efforts across cloud-native microservices, API gateways, event-driven architectures, loyalty platforms, identity services, and commerce integrations, ensuring production readiness, scalability, security, reliability, and exceptional customer experiences.

The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in automation-first testing practices, API and integration testing, AWS-native systems, CI/CD-driven quality engineering, observability-led testing, and Agile delivery models. Experience in e-commerce platforms, loyalty ecosystems, customer engagement journeys, and high-volume transaction systems is highly desirable.

Key Responsibilities

Quality Strategy & Leadership

• Define and own the end-to-end Quality Engineering strategy, roadmap, governance model, and execution framework across discovery, development, integration, testing, and production rollout phases.
• Establish quality standards, testing methodologies, quality gates, and release readiness criteria aligned with enterprise delivery objectives.
• Lead QA planning, estimation, staffing, risk assessment, and execution across multiple Agile teams and workstreams.

Functional, Integration & API Testing

• Lead testing efforts across cloud-native microservices, RESTful APIs, middleware orchestration services, identity platforms, loyalty systems, and third-party integrations.
• Design and execute comprehensive test strategies covering functional, integration, regression, system, user acceptance, and end-to-end testing.
• Validate complex customer journeys including account creation, authentication, loyalty enrollment, rewards redemption, digital ordering, checkout, payment processing, and customer engagement workflows.

Event-Driven & Cloud-Native Testing

• Develop testing approaches for event-driven and asynchronous architectures, including message queues, event streams, and API gateway integrations.
• Validate event propagation, message reliability, ordering, fault tolerance, retry mechanisms, and system resiliency.
• Ensure seamless interoperability between cloud-native services, external platforms, and enterprise systems.

Test Automation & Continuous Testing

• Drive an automation-first quality engineering culture across the program.
• Design and implement scalable automation frameworks for:
  • API Automation
  • UI Automation
  • Integration Testing
  • Contract Testing
  • Regression Testing
• Establish continuous testing practices integrated into CI/CD pipelines.
• Enable automated validation for feature flags, progressive releases, canary deployments, and production rollouts.

Environment & Test Data Management

• Establish test environment management strategies for cloud-native applications and integrated ecosystems.
• Define test data management, masking, synthetic data generation, and service virtualization approaches.
• Ensure stable and scalable testing environments supporting continuous delivery objectives.

Stakeholder Collaboration & Reporting

• Collaborate closely with Product Owners, Architects, Engineering Leads, DevOps teams, Business Analysts, and Program Leadership.
• Embed quality guardrails and governance controls throughout the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC).
• Provide executive-level reporting on quality metrics, defect trends, release readiness, risks, and mitigation plans.

Team Leadership & Mentorship

• Lead and mentor QA engineers and automation specialists.
• Establish testing best practices, reusable assets, standards, and quality engineering frameworks.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives focused on efficiency, automation coverage, and quality outcomes.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field.
• 10–15 years of experience in Quality Engineering, with at least 3+ years in a QA leadership role supporting enterprise-scale digital platforms.
• Strong experience testing: Microservices architectures; REST APIs; API Gateways; Event-driven systems; Distributed applications
• Proven expertise in test automation frameworks and tools such as: Selenium; Playwright; Cypress; Rest Assured; Karate; Postman/Newman; JMeter; Similar modern automation platforms
• Hands-on experience implementing CI/CD-driven continuous testing using: Jenkins; GitHub Actions; GitLab CI/CD; AWS DevOps Toolchain; Comparable platforms
• Strong experience testing cloud-native applications on AWS, including containerized and serverless workloads.
• Experience validating loyalty platforms, identity management solutions, and digital commerce workflows.
• Strong understanding of: E-commerce customer journeys; Checkout and payment processing; Customer engagement platforms; Loyalty lifecycle management; Omnichannel digital experiences
• Experience implementing performance, resiliency, security, and chaos testing strategies.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, analytical, and leadership skills.
• Experience working within Agile, Scrum, and SAFe delivery frameworks.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in QSR, restaurant technology, retail, hospitality, or high-scale consumer-facing digital platforms.
• Hands-on experience validating: Feature Flags; Progressive Rollouts; Canary Releases
• Experience testing high-volume transactional systems with strict latency and availability SLAs.
• Certifications such as: ISTQB; Agile Testing Certifications; AWS Certifications; DevOps Certifications; SAFe Certifications

Compensation, Benefits and Duration

Minimum Compensation: USD 52,000
Maximum Compensation: USD 182,000
Compensation is based on actual experience and qualifications of the candidate. The above is a reasonable and a good faith estimate for the role.
Medical, vision, and dental benefits, 401k retirement plan, variable pay/incentives, paid time off, and paid holidays are available for full-time employees.
This position is available for independent contractors
No applications will be considered if received more than 120 days after the date of this post.