Quality Assurance Automation Lead

Job Title: QA Automation Lead

Location: GTA, ON

Duration: Long-term contract

Rate: CAD50-CAD60/hr

Job Description:

We are seeking a strong Automation Testing Lead with 8+ years of relevant experience, preferably within the Banking and Financial Services industry. The ideal candidate will possess a solid background in test automation, mobile and API testing, release management support, and stakeholder coordination. This role requires a proactive leader who can drive regression testing activities, manage offshore teams, and ensure high-quality releases in a fast-paced agile environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and coordinate end-to-end regression testing activities across multiple releases.
• Own regression testing handover activities by collaborating with business and technology squads to understand new features, assess regression impacts, and ensure appropriate test coverage.
• Drive completion and sign-off of mobile regression testing for each release.
• Manage and guide offshore QA team members by assigning tasks, monitoring progress, and ensuring timely delivery.
• Serve as the primary liaison between client stakeholders, release teams, development squads, and offshore teams.
• Participate in defect triage sessions, perform root cause analysis, and track defects through closure.
• Support release deployments, release validation, and post-production testing activities.
• Perform sanity and smoke testing to validate critical business functionality following deployments.
• Coordinate batch executions and other testing activities required for release validation.
• Provide leadership and technical guidance to QA team members and resolve testing-related blockers.
• Continuously improve automation coverage by identifying opportunities to automate manual test scenarios.
• Execute and support API, mobile, and end-to-end automation testing initiatives.
• Track testing metrics, report status, identify risks, and communicate progress to stakeholders.
• Ensure effective planning, execution, reporting, and delivery of quality outcomes for every release.

Required Technical Skills & Experience

• 8+ years of experience in Quality Engineering, Test Automation, or QA Leadership roles.
• Hands-on experience with Mobile Automation Frameworks.
• Strong experience in API Testing using tools such as Postman, Swagger, and related technologies.
• Experience with Jira, Xray, ALM, or other test management tools.
• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, batch execution processes, and release validation activities.
• Experience testing mobile applications across iOS and Android platforms.
• Familiarity with defect management, log analysis, and monitoring tools.
• Strong understanding of Agile delivery methodologies and release management processes.
• Prior experience working in a Banking or Financial Services environment is highly preferred.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and leadership skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading distributed/onshore-offshore QA teams.
• Exposure to digital banking, mobile banking, or customer-facing banking applications.
• Ability to work independently, manage competing priorities, and drive quality initiatives with minimal supervision.