Quality Assurance Manager

Quality Assurance Manager Want to be responsible for defining, implementing, and continuously improving the company's quality strategy, ensuring that our services and software solutions consistently meet customer expectations? Quality Assurance Manager Farringdon, London (EC1M) Permanent Hybrid working Toyota Connected Europe (TCEU) is seeking an enthusiastic quality expert to join the engineering management team. As a Toyota affiliate company, the continuous pursuit of quality improvement is of the utmost importance. Candidates for this position must be highly motivated, able to make data-driven decisions, and have strong management and interpersonal skills. This person will interact with a wide variety of individuals, including business stakeholders and IT leadership teams across the global Toyota ecosystem. The Role: This role reports to VP Engineering, and will be responsible for defining, implementing, and continuously improving the company's quality strategy, ensuring that both our services and software solutions consistently meet customer expectations and business objectives. You will act as the voice of quality across the organisation, working closely with engineering, operations, delivery, and customer stakeholders to drive a culture of continuous improvement, operational excellence, and proactive quality management. You will have a dotted reporting line to CEO to enable this cross-functional reach. Finally, the role will also serve as the primary interface between TCEU’s and Toyota Motor Europe’s Quality organisations. Key Responsibilities: Quality Strategy & Leadership Develop and maintain the company's quality strategy, standards, governance, and operating framework. Embed a quality-first culture across all teams and functions. Promote continuous improvement principles inspired by automotive quality methodologies and the Toyota Quality Mindset. Champion structured problem-solving approaches and preventative quality management. Lead the ongoing adoption and reinforcement of quality training programmes, including methodologies such as built-in quality (Ji Kotei Kanketsu) and continuous improvement (Kaizen) practices. Customer & Stakeholder Quality Management Act as the primary quality representative for the business with customer stakeholders. Build and maintain strong relationships with the client's Quality, Operations, and Delivery teams. Lead quality governance meetings, reviews, audits, and improvement initiatives with customer stakeholders. Ensure customer quality requirements are clearly understood, documented, and effectively implemented. Provide transparent reporting on quality performance, risks, trends, and improvement actions. Quality Processes & Performance Management Define, implement, and continuously improve quality processes across software delivery and service operations. Establish and maintain quality metrics and reporting frameworks, including: Defect escape and flow-out measurement. Service quality performance. Quality trend analysis. Corrective and preventive action tracking. Process compliance monitoring. Own Root Cause Analysis (RCA) processes and ensure effective corrective and preventive actions are implemented. Govern countermeasures development and validation to prevent recurrence of issues; ensure lessons learned are translated into sustainable process improvements. Work with Cloud and ITSM teams to monitor service quality, through effective management of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Service Level Objectives (SLOs). investigate customer issues, incidents, service failures, and software defects. Lead internal quality reviews and process audits, including preventative initiatives to reduce risk. Software Quality Engineering Partner closely with Engineering and Product teams to embed quality throughout the software development lifecycle. Define and promote modern software quality engineering practices. Support the adoption of automation-first testing strategies and quality tooling. Drive quality engineering methodologies including: Test automation frameworks. Continuous integration and continuous testing. Shift-left quality practices. Risk-based testing approaches. Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) principles. Ensure quality requirements are incorporated into engineering standards and delivery processes. Team Leadership & Capacity Management Provide line management and leadership for the Quality Assurance team. Manage team capacity, workload planning, and resource allocation. Establish clear objectives, performance expectations, and quality standards for team members. Recruit, develop, and retain high-performing quality professionals. Ensure quality resources are aligned to business priorities and customer commitments. Create and maintain professional development plans for quality team members. Mentor and coach colleagues in quality methodologies, problem solving, and continuous improvement practices. Promote ongoing learning and capability development across the organisation. Support career progression and succession planning within the quality function. Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, and excellence. Governance, Compliance & Risk Maintain and improve the company's Quality Management System (QMS). Ensure compliance with customer requirements, internal policies, and relevant industry standards. Support internal and external audits. Identify quality risks and implement appropriate mitigation strategies. Maintain audit readiness and quality documentation standards. Skills & Experience: Essential Significant experience in a Quality Assurance Manager, Quality Manager, or Quality Engineering leadership role. Experience working within software, digital services, or SaaS environments. Strong understanding of automotive quality principles and continuous improvement methodologies. Experience working directly with enterprise customers and customer quality organisations. Proven experience leading Root Cause Analysis and problem management processes. Experience defining and reporting quality KPIs and operational metrics. Knowledge of service quality management, including SLAs and SLOs. Experience leading quality assurance teams and managing team performance. Strong stakeholder management and communication skills. Ability to influence senior business and customer stakeholders. Desirable Familiarity with Toyota Production System principles and Toyota quality methodologies (e.g. JKK). Knowledge of ISO 9001 or related quality management standards. Experience implementing Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) practices. Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, Black Belt, or equivalent. Experience supporting automotive OEMs or Tier 1 suppliers. Experience scaling quality functions within high-growth organisations. Success Measures Success in this role will be demonstrated through: Reduced defect flow-out and improved product quality metrics. Improved SLA and SLO attainment and service quality performance. Effective closure and prevention of recurring issues through robust RCA and countermeasure implementation. Strong customer satisfaction and confidence in the quality function. Increased quality automation and engineering maturity. A highly engaged and capable quality team with clear development pathways. Successful embedding of continuous improvement and Toyota-inspired quality practices across the organisation. This role offers the opportunity to build and lead a quality function that directly influences customer success, software excellence, and operational performance within a fast-growing technology business serving a world-class automotive client, Toyota Motors. Creating connections that empower movement. Transforming the way customers experience mobility, responsibly. Delivering innovation at the speed of life. We leverage the power of data to create value – Is this your chance to play a key part in that? If you have the skills and aptitude we’re looking for, we’d love to hear from you. Department Testing Locations London Remote status Hybrid