Quality Assurance (QA) Manager

ABOUT TERRA DOTTA: Terra Dotta is a global software company that provides more than 700 organizations with software that allows them to manage international education programs. Terra Dotta offers an exciting workplace dealing with organizations worldwide and working with staff who have worked, lived, and studied around the globe. We foster internationalization for incoming and outgoing teams, faculty, and students, increase travelers’ safety and reduce organization liability. OUR VISION: Transforming the future through global connections today. OUR MISSION: Develop innovative solutions that delight and empower international educators by expanding their global impact, fostering life-changing cultural exchanges, and preparing students to flourish in a global community. Title: Quality Assurance (QA) Manager Reports to: Chief Operating Officer (with close partnership to Director of Product Operations) Type: Full-Time (Contract, with contract-to-hire potential) Location: Remote (must overlap core hours of 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM ET) The Role Terra Dotta is investing in a centralized Quality Assurance function to support our transition to a product-led operating model. This is a hands-on, working-manager role: you will lead a distributed QA team across all five of our product lines, drive adoption of a growing test automation pipeline, and establish the standards, processes, and accountability that a modern QA function needs. This role sits apart from Engineering by design, creating a dedicated quality voice that partners closely with Product and Engineering leadership. You will need to build credibility quickly, establish authority with a distributed team, and be comfortable holding a firm line on quality even under schedule pressure. As our automation capabilities mature, you will also help evaluate and evolve the shape of the QA team and its vendor/contractor mix to align staffing with the coverage automation provides. This is not a role for someone who needs a fully mature QA organization already in place to be effective. Key Responsibilities Lead and manage a distributed QA team, including in-house staff and external contractors/vendors, across all five Terra Dotta product lines. Own and scale a Playwright-based test automation pipeline integrated with our CI/CD process, partnering with our Automation Architect Drive full integration between our test case management platform and automated test execution and reporting Establish and enforce quality gates and a clear definition of done within the CI/CD pipeline Shift QA involvement upstream: reviewing user journeys and acceptance criteria before development begins, not just validating after code ships Build and own a weekly quality dashboard covering defect escape rate, automation coverage, test execution pass rate, and priority-1/priority-2 defect trends Own a stable, production-like QA test environment, partnering with Infrastructure/DevOps leadership Scope and build an automated accessibility testing workstream (WCAG 2.2) embedded in the CI pipeline Scope and build a proactive security testing workstream in partnership with our Security team Evaluate current QA team structure and staffing model and recommend adjustments as automation coverage matures Lead and champion the adoption of AI-assisted QA practices, including AI-generated test cases and LLM-assisted defect analysis, evolving strategy as the landscape changes Cross-Functional Collaboration Partner with Product, Engineering, and Delivery leadership across all five product lines, including regular participation in cross-functional product team standups. Work closely with our Automation Architect on pipeline strategy and adoption Coordinate with Infrastructure/DevOps on test environment stability and strategy Partner with Security on building a proactive, automated security testing posture Report into and align closely with senior Product Operations leadership Required Qualifications Experience 5+ years of QA experience, including at least 2 years managing or leading a distributed QA function Hands-on experience with test automation frameworks such as Playwright, Selenium, or equivalent Experience with test case management platforms (e.g., TestRail) - running test cases in, reporting results out Experience managing offshore or geographically distributed QA teams Experience evaluating and adjusting QA team structure or staffing models, including prior experience managing organizational change within a QA function Experience testing Angular or other complex single-page applications Experience managing external QA vendors and/or contractor relationships Education Bachelor's degree in a related field, or equivalent professional experience Preferred Qualifications Experience in B2B SaaS environments with multi-tenant architecture and complex user roles Familiarity with AI-assisted test generation tools (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or similar) Experience integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions) Experience building or rebuilding a QA function, including leading culture change Familiarity with emerging AI-driven QA practices such as self-healing test frameworks and LLM-assisted defect pattern analysis Experience with shift-left testing practices, including reviewing requirements and user journeys prior to development Experience defining and enforcing quality gates and definition of done within a delivery pipeline Experience building recurring quality metrics and reporting (e.g., defect escape rate, automation coverage, defect trend dashboards) Higher education or immigration compliance domain knowledge is helpful, though not required What Success Looks Like in This Role You know your team well and can speak to strengths, gaps, and development needs Manual QA testers are documenting test cases in parallel with development, not after Automated regression testing is running in CI/CD across multiple product lines You are an active, trusted participant in cross-functional product team meetings Engineering teams understand and respect the quality standards you've established Accessibility and security testing workstreams are scoped and included in the automation roadmap You've presented leadership with a clear view of team structure and staffing recommendations aligned to automation maturity Tech Environment Angular / PrimeNG frontend. AWS infrastructure. Jenkins CI/CD. Test case management via TestRail. Defect tracking via Jira. AI-assisted development and automation tooling (Claude Code).