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Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States
Onsite
Not Available
GreatAmerica Financial Services is a highly successful entrepreneurial company providing equipment financing to businesses across the United States. Our exemplary customer service, our principle-centered business philosophy and our team-based operating approach are key to our success and growth.
We are looking to add a Key Member to our Technology Group!
The Quality Assurance Engineering Leader is responsible for defining and leading the end-to-end quality strategy across manual and automated testing practices. This role ensures that quality is built into all phases of the software development lifecycle by establishing standards, frameworks, and processes that support reliable, scalable, and high-performing systems.
This leader partners closely with Business Subject Matter Experts, Product, Engineering, and Architecture teams to embed quality into solution design and delivery. The role drives a balanced testing approach—leveraging both manual testing for exploratory and user-focused validation and automated testing for scalability, speed, and consistency—to deliver high-quality products and exceptional customer experiences.
As the Quality Assurance Engineering Leader, you will:
Quality Strategy & Governance
Define and lead the QA strategy, balancing manual and automated testing approaches across platforms and products.
Establish QA standards, testing methodologies, and quality gates across the SDLC.
Ensure consistent testing practices, documentation standards, and quality metrics across teams.
Manual & Automated Testing Leadership
Oversee the full testing lifecycle, including test planning, execution, defect management, and reporting.
Establish and scale automated testing practices, including integration into CI/CD pipelines.
Ensure appropriate use of manual testing for exploratory, usability, and edge-case validation.
Drive improvements in test coverage, test efficiency, and defect prevention strategies.
Define frameworks for functional, regression, integration, and user acceptance testing.
Define the test environment and test data seeding strategy.
Engineering Integration & Delivery
Partner with engineering teams to embed quality engineering practices into development workflows.
Influence system design decisions to improve testability, performance, and reliability.
Ensure testing is integrated early in the lifecycle (shift-left approach) and supported throughout delivery.
Operational Excellence & Continuous Improvement
Analyze defect trends, test effectiveness, and release outcomes to drive continuous improvement.
Lead root cause analysis and ensure corrective actions are implemented to reduce future defects.
Establish quality KPIs (e.g., defect leakage, automation coverage, release quality) and monitor performance.
Provide go/no-go recommendations for releases based on quality metrics and risk assessment.
Leadership & Team Development
Build, lead, and develop a high-performing QA organization, including both manual QA and QA automation engineers.
Define clear roles, career paths, and development plans across QA disciplines.
Coach teams on modern QA practices, including automation, Agile testing, and quality engineering.
Foster a culture of accountability, learning, and continuous improvement.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Partner with Product Managers, Delivery, Architecture, and Engineering to align quality with business goals.
Support user acceptance testing and collaborate with business stakeholders on quality expectations.
Communicate quality insights, risks, and recommendations clearly to leadership.
To be successful in the role, you will need:
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field (or equivalent experience).
8+ years of experience in software quality assurance, including both manual and automated testing.
3+ years of leadership experience (direct or matrix leadership).
Experience implementing or scaling QA automation frameworks and tooling.
Experience working in Agile development environments with cross-functional teams.
Experience in test lifecycle management, defect tracking, and CI/CD integration.
Skills and Abilities
Strong understanding of both manual testing techniques and automated testing frameworks.
Experience with test automation tools, scripting, and modern QA engineering practices.
Deep knowledge of SDLC, Agile methodologies, and quality engineering principles.
Ability to balance speed, quality, and risk in release decision-making.
Strong analytical skills, including trend analysis and root cause identification.
Excellent communication skills, including the ability to translate technical quality metrics into business insights.
Proven ability to lead teams through change and maturity progression (manual → automation → quality engineering).
Sharing rewards is an integral part of our culture. We believe in the value of hard work and reward our employees beyond the paycheck. Our total rewards package is based on eligibility and includes:
Financial Benefits
Health, Wellbeing, and Family Planning Benefits
Education and Career Planning Benefits
Perks
If your experience aligns closely, please apply. We value diverse backgrounds and adding new perspectives. We encourage you to apply if you can make a strong impact in this role at www.greatamerica.com/careers.
Please note, applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa.