Quality Analyst Lead

We are seeking a highly experienced QA professional to establish and enforce testing standards and best practices across the organization, with a strong emphasis on security, penetration testing, API quality, and database validation. This person will be responsible for ensuring secure, end-to-end quality control on all projects, from small-scale applications to large enterprise solutions. This individual will: ✔ Define and standardize QA processes and testing frameworks, with security-first testing principles. ✔ Ensure a balance between manual, automation, and security testing techniques. ✔ Audit and enforce adherence to QA best practices, including API and security compliance, across projects. ✔ Implement continuous testing strategies to enhance product quality without compromising security depth. ✔ Be technology-agnostic and adaptable to different software stacks, including API-driven and microservices architectures. Key Responsibilities 1. Testing Standards & Best Practices Define and implement QA strategies, methodologies, and frameworks for all projects, with explicit inclusion of security and API testing standards. Establish testing guidelines for manual, automation, performance, API, database, and security testing. Develop standard operating procedures (SOPs) for various testing phases, including penetration testing and security validation. Ensure test plans, test cases, and defect management processes meet industry standards, including OWASP and secure SDLC practices. 2. Manual & Automation Testing Leadership Oversee functional, regression, integration, and end-to-end testing approaches, with special focus on API-driven systems. Develop and implement automation testing strategies for improved efficiency, including automated API and security test coverage. Define the usage of tools such as Selenium, Appium, JMeter, Postman, Cypress, and security testing tools like Burp Suite or equivalents. Ensure a smooth balance between manual, automation, and penetration/security testing approaches. 3. QA Audits & Compliance Conduct regular audits on projects to ensure compliance with defined testing standards, security benchmarks, and API quality guidelines. Identify gaps in functional, API, database, and security test coverage and ensure necessary improvements. Work closely with project teams to enforce a quality-first and security-aware approach. Maintain and improve QA reporting and documentation, including security risk and vulnerability reporting. 4. Collaboration & Mentorship Work closely with developers, DevOps engineers, security teams, and project managers to ensure a seamless and secure QA process. Provide technical leadership and mentorship to QA engineers across different teams, particularly in API, database, and security testing practices. Encourage a culture of continuous learning, security awareness, and quality ownership. 5. Performance & Security Testing Oversee performance testing strategies to ensure application scalability and reliability. Implement penetration testing and application security best practices to safeguard projects from vulnerabilities. Ensure coverage of OWASP Top 10 (Web & API) risks, authentication/authorization flaws, and data exposure issues. Optimize test execution cycles and automation coverage for faster releases while maintaining robust security validation.

Must-Have 10+ years of experience in software testing, with expertise in both manual and automation testing. Strong background in defining and implementing QA frameworks and best practices, including security and API testing standards. Experience in end-to-end testing strategies for small, medium, and large-scale projects, especially API and microservices-based systems. Proficiency in multiple testing tools and frameworks (e.g., Selenium, JMeter, Postman, Cypress, Appium). Hands-on experience in API testing, penetration testing, security testing, and database validation. Strong analytical skills to identify security risks, gaps, and inefficiencies in testing. Experience in auditing and ensuring compliance with QA and security standards across projects.