Hands on QA & Release Manager / Lead

Hands on QA & Release Manager / Lead- remote - Romania (or any country in Eastern Europe)

Experience:

• Solid experience in software testing and QA (SaaS and/or scaling start-ups - highly desirable)
• Experience in Agile, DevOps, or continuous-flow environments with frequent releases
• QA Manager / Release Manager / Leadership experience (setting direction, delegating ownership, developing people..)
• Demonstrable experience planning and leading major version upgrades for enterprise clients across UAT and Production environments — including upgrade roadmap, cutover, rollback, and post-upgrade validation
• Experience using AI tools (generative AI, copilots, log-analysis assistants, LLM-based debugging) and leading AI adoption across a QA team
• Proven experience owning release management end-to-end (Test, UAT, Production) across multiple parallel client streams or product lines
• Solid experience with ITIL processes for Release, Change, and Configuration Management, and QA
• Strong technical background in software development (.NET / C# preferred), SQL
• Experience with TeamCity, Octopus Deploy, and Bitbucket — or equivalent CI/CD tooling
• Hands-on and directive experience with automated testing — Cypress, Playwright, Selenium, or similar
• Understanding of API testing and validation (REST, contract testing, Postman or equivalent)
• Proficient with Jira, Confluence, Xray, and Trello

Desirable

• Experience implementing risk management strategies, conducting post-release reviews, and driving continuous improvement
• Client-facing experience

· Experience with CPQ, configure-price-quote, pricing, or quote-to-cash platforms

· Exposure to enterprise integrations (Salesforce / Dynamics CRM / SAP / ERP)

· .NET / C# / React ecosystem familiarity

· ITIL v4 Foundation or higher certification

· ISTQB Advanced Level or equivalent QA certification

· Experience integrating infrastructure and middleware upgrades into release cycles