Lead QA Engineer

We are currently looking for a Lead QA Engineer to oversee the QA function at ChannelEngine. Quality isn't just about finding bugs. It's about protecting customers, enabling engineering teams to move quickly with confidence, and building the processes that ensure every release meets a high standard 🚀 This is a senior, hands-on leadership role reporting to the Engineering Director, where you'll define our QA strategy, establish release governance, build and mentor a team of QA Engineers, and shape how quality is embedded across our development process. If you're excited by the opportunity to build a quality function, influence engineering practices, and create a culture where quality is everyone's responsibility, we'd love to hear from you ⭐ What will you do as Lead QA Engineer? As Lead QA Engineer, you'll take end-to-end ownership of quality across our SaaS platform 📈 Your role will be to define and execute our QA strategy while remaining hands-on with testing, release readiness, and production quality. Key focus areas include building scalable QA processes, improving release confidence, and ensuring customers experience a reliable platform 🏆 You'll drive exploratory and risk-based testing, own release Go/No-Go decisions, oversee production validation after deployments, and drive root cause analysis to prevent recurring issues. Collaboration is key as you'll work closely with Engineering, Product and Support to establish effective bug triage processes, improve quality metrics, and embed quality throughout the software development lifecycle 🌱 Through mentoring, you'll build and develop a high-performing QA team while balancing automation, manual testing, AI-assisted testing, and production monitoring to maximise customer value 🌟 What makes you the ideal Lead QA Engineer? 5+ years of QA experience within a software environment, including experience leading QA initiatives and teams, Strong hands-on experience with exploratory testing, API testing, SQL, Jira, and modern QA tooling, Experience working with CI/CD environments and making pragmatic choices around automation versus manual testing, Confident communicator who can challenge stakeholders, influence engineering decisions, and make release readiness judgements when required, Comfortable using AI tools to improve testing, bug analysis and quality processes while applying sound engineering judgement, Currently residing within commuting distance of Leiden. Nice to have (but not essential) Experience working on a SaaS platform Familiarity with e-commerce / online marketplaces Experience using Javascript for automation testing Why you’ll love working here You’ll receive a thorough onboarding to get you familiar with ChannelEngine, our processes and tools, and your new colleagues. You’ll also have a buddy to support you along the way You’ll be working in an open and collaborative company with +/-200 colleagues of over 40 different nationalities 🌎 Work-life balance: we enable people to work in ways that suit their working style, which is why we offer flexible hours and hybrid-working We want to make sure everyone is supported mentally and emotionally which is why we provide free access to mental healthcare support You’ll be granted equity benefits and have access to financial coaching so that we can grow together 🌱 We’ll contribute 6% to your pension fund You’ve applied. What’s next? We want all of our candidates to enjoy a smooth and efficient experience with us which is why we aim to get back to you regarding your application within 2 business days. The first step is a screening call with a member of the recruitment team. This is followed by an onsite meeting with the department heads, and two video meetings with the QA team. Our interview process tends to take +/-4 weeks to complete 💙 Use of AI in applications Excessive AI use in CVs and cover letters is discouraged. We’re most interested in hearing your genuine voice and understanding the person behind the application.