QA Lead / Quality Assurance Lead (m/f/d)

Randstad Professional is one of Randstad's four specializations and focuses on the placement of specialists and managers in the future-oriented sectors of IT, Engineering, Life Science and Office.

On behalf of our client—a leading European enterprise in the consumer services, travel, and mobility sector—we are seeking an experienced QA Lead (m/f/d).

The enterprise operates high-scale, mission-critical digital platforms supporting millions of customer interactions annually. In this pivotal role, you will take strategic ownership of software quality assurance, spearhead the modernization of test automation architectures, and orchestrate international engineering and delivery teams.

Location: Northern Germany Region / Greater Hamburg Area (Hybrid)

Employment Type: Full-time, Permanent

• Strategic Quality Ownership: Design, implement, and govern the enterprise QA framework for business-critical core applications; establish actionable quality KPIs, risk-based testing strategies, and quality gates aligned with business targets.
• Automation & CI/CD Integration: Drive the architecture, implementation, and expansion of scalable UI and API test automation frameworks; integrate automated regression suites into modern CI/CD pipelines.
• Vendor & Offshore Steering: Supervise, coordinate, and evaluate external nearshore and offshore testing partners; ensure strict adherence to SLAs, quality benchmarks, milestone deliveries, and resource plans.
• Environments & Test Data Management: Partner with Platform and DevOps teams to maintain resilient, reproducible test environments; champion robust test data strategies, including synthetic generation, anonymization, and data masking for compliance.
• Business Enablement & UAT Governance: Empower Product Owners, business stakeholders, and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to plan and execute structured User Acceptance Testing (UAT); standardize reporting and test documentation.
• Release Governance & Traceability: Collaborate with Change and Release Management (CAB processes) to ensure audit-ready test documentation, full requirement-to-verification traceability, and systematic root-cause analyses (RCA).
• Experience: 8+ years of hands-on experience in software quality assurance for complex enterprise ecosystems, including at least 4 years in a leadership role managing external delivery partners or distributed offshore hubs.
• Automation Expertise: Proven track record in architecting and scaling modern UI/API automated testing solutions (e.g., Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, or equivalent frameworks) embedded within automated delivery pipelines.
• Cloud & DevOps Ecosystems: Practical familiarity with cloud infrastructures (preferably Microsoft Azure), container technologies (Docker, Kubernetes), and modern test management suites (Azure DevOps, Jira).
• Testing Disciplines: Solid grasp of core performance and security testing principles (load/stress testing, OWASP guidelines), alongside practical implementation of Shift-Left and Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe).
• Languages: Business-fluent English proficiency (C1 level or higher) is mandatory for working across cross-border teams; German language skills are an advantage.
• Mobility: Willingness to undertake occasional business travel to European hub locations.
• High-impact leadership position shaping the core digital landscape of a market-leading enterprise.
• Complex, modern cloud architecture with substantial autonomy to define testing standards and tooling.
• Attractive compensation package with comprehensive benefits, flexible hybrid working models, and long-term professional development paths.