Head of Software QA in Manchester

If you believe quality should be built into software from day one – not tested in at the end – this could be where you transform an entire engineering culture.

What’s in it for you

You’ll have the opportunity to reshape how software quality works across a major technology organisation. Instead of maintaining the status quo, you’ll lead the move from traditional testing to modern quality engineering, embedding automation, continuous testing and “shift-left” thinking across multiple delivery teams. You’ll influence how over 50 QA professionals work today — and how quality evolves across a broader engineering ecosystem including strategic delivery partners. And because this is a senior, cross-cutting role reporting directly into technology leadership, your decisions won’t sit in PowerPoint decks. They’ll shape how software gets delivered across the entire organisation.

What you’ll be doing (and why you’ll enjoy it)

You’ll build and lead a modern Quality Engineering practice that works across multiple delivery teams and product portfolios. Your focus will be on embedding quality into the development lifecycle — helping teams move from manual testing towards automation-first, built-in quality while still being pragmatic about different team maturity levels.

Day to day you’ll:

• Lead and develop QA and test professionals across multiple teams and locations
• Create a cross-cutting community of practice that unifies standards, capability and career development
• Define and deliver a Quality Engineering strategy that promotes shift-left testing and continuous testing
• Partner with product, architecture and delivery leaders to embed quality early in design and development
• Drive smarter use of test automation and CI/CD pipelines
• Use data and metrics to improve quality outcomes and delivery speed
• Align internal teams and delivery partners around the metrics that matter — defect leakage, cycle time, automation coverage and more

You’ll also play a key leadership role in shaping the wider engineering organisation — helping break down silos and build a shared identity across software teams.

Where you’ll be doing it

You’ll join a technology organisation undergoing a major transformation in how it builds and delivers software. There’s real momentum behind modern engineering practices — but like many large organisations, maturity levels vary across teams. That’s where you come in. You’ll help unify different delivery approaches (including SAFe, Scrumban and hybrid agile models) and bring a pragmatic, coaching-led approach to improving quality across the board. It’s a rare opportunity to influence culture, capability and engineering outcomes at scale.

What you’ll need

You’ll likely bring experience such as:

• Leading a large QA or quality engineering function
• Delivering quality transformation and cultural change
• Managing QA leaders or large test teams
• Embedding automation-first testing and continuous testing
• Working in complex engineering environments with multiple delivery teams
• Influencing stakeholders across product, engineering and delivery

You’ll also bring the leadership style to make it work — pragmatic, collaborative and able to coach teams through change.

Bonus points if you’ve worked with:

• Agile frameworks such as SAFe or Scrumban
• Large engineering environments with external development partners
• Automation frameworks and modern CI/CD pipelines
• Performance, API or security testing approaches

What next

If you’re currently leading QA or quality engineering and want a role where you can shape the future of software quality at scale, we’d love to hear from you. Your CV doesn’t need to be perfect or fully up to date. Just send what you have, or get in touch for an informal conversation about the role.