Director, Quality Engineering & Assurance

Position Summary

The Director of Quality Engineering & Assurance is responsible for defining and executing Dark Matter's enterprise-wide quality strategy across all products, platforms, services, and customer-facing solutions.

This leader is accountable for ensuring that quality is engineered throughout the software development lifecycle, from requirements and architecture through deployment and production monitoring.

The role leads all quality engineering disciplines, including test automation, quality assurance, performance engineering, release validation, quality governance, defect prevention, AI-assisted testing, and continuous quality improvement.

The ideal candidate combines deep technical expertise, operational excellence, and transformational leadership with the ability to scale quality practices across a complex SaaS platform ecosystem.

Core Mission

Build a world-class quality engineering organization that accelerates delivery while improving reliability, stability, customer confidence, and product excellence.

Key Responsibilities

Quality Strategy & Leadership

• Define and execute the company's overall Quality Engineering strategy.
• Establish a multi-year roadmap for quality maturity, automation expansion, and engineering excellence.
• Create a culture where quality is owned by every engineering team.
• Establish quality standards, governance models, and operational metrics across the organization.
• Drive consistency across products, engineering teams, and release processes.

Quality Engineering & Automation

• Lead enterprise-wide automation initiatives across functional, regression, integration, API, and end-to-end testing.
• Drive adoption of AI-assisted quality engineering and intelligent testing capabilities.
• Establish automation-first testing practices and reduce reliance on manual testing.
• Expand automated validation throughout CI/CD pipelines.
• Partner with engineering leaders to improve release confidence and deployment velocity.

Performance Engineering

• Own enterprise performance testing strategy.
• Establish scalable performance, load, stress, and resiliency testing capabilities.
• Ensure all strategic products undergo continuous performance validation.
• Drive proactive identification and remediation of scalability risks.
• Lead performance testing innovation and environment optimization efforts.

Quality Metrics & Governance

• Define executive quality scorecards and operational reporting.
• Establish measurable goals for:
  • Production defect reduction
  • Escaped defect reduction
  • Automation coverage
  • Release quality
  • Performance testing coverage
  • Defect resolution efficiency
  • Customer-impacting incidents
• Present quality trends and recommendations to executive leadership.
• Ensure transparent reporting across all product portfolios.

Defect Prevention & Continuous Improvement

• Lead root cause analysis programs across Engineering, Product, and QA.
• Drive initiatives that reduce defect introduction rates.
• Establish preventive quality controls throughout the development lifecycle.
• Implement risk-based testing methodologies.
• Use quality data to inform product and engineering investment decisions.

AI & Innovation

• Establish a roadmap for AI-assisted software quality practices.
• Evaluate and implement AI solutions for:
  • Test generation
  • Test maintenance
  • Defect analysis
  • Risk-based testing
  • Regression optimization
  • Release readiness assessments
• Ensure quality engineering remains a strategic innovation function within R&D.

Release Readiness & Production Excellence

• Establish release certification standards.
• Ensure high-quality deployments across all product lines.
• Partner with Engineering, Product Management, and Operations on release governance.
• Drive reduction in production incidents and post-release defects.
• Improve overall platform stability and customer experience.

Organizational Leadership

• Lead managers, architects, automation leaders, performance engineers, quality engineers, and analysts.
• Build a high-performing global Quality Engineering organization.
• Develop career paths, succession plans, and leadership growth opportunities.
• Recruit and retain top technical talent.
• Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

Partner closely with:

• Product Management
• Software Engineering
• Platform Engineering
• DevOps
• SRE
• Product Operations
• Professional Services
• Client Success

Serve as the organizational leader responsible for ensuring quality remains a measurable and predictable outcome rather than a final testing activity.

Success Metrics

Quality Metrics

• Escaped Production Defects
• UAT Defect Leakage
• Release Quality Index
• Root Cause Trend Reduction
• Customer-Reported Defects

Automation Metrics

• Automation Coverage %
• Automated Regression Coverage
• CI/CD Validation Coverage
• Automation Execution Time
• Test Maintenance Efficiency

Performance Metrics

• Application Performance Compliance
• Scalability Readiness
• Load Testing Coverage
• Mean Time to Detect Performance Degradation

Organizational Metrics

• Release Predictability
• Cycle Time Improvement
• Deployment Success Rates
• Employee Engagement
• Leadership Development

Qualifications

Required

• 15+ years of software quality, quality engineering, or engineering leadership experience.
• 8+ years leading large QA or Quality Engineering organizations.
• Proven experience managing quality across enterprise SaaS platforms.
• Deep understanding of:
  • Test Automation
  • Performance Engineering
  • Release Engineering
  • Quality Governance
  • Modern CI/CD practices
  • Agile development
• Experience creating and scaling automation-first organizations.
• Strong executive communication and leadership skills.
• Experience presenting quality metrics and operational performance to executive leadership.

Preferred

• Experience in mortgage technology, financial services, fintech, banking technology, or regulated software environments.
• Experience leading distributed global teams.
• Hands-on knowledge of AI-assisted software testing techniques.
• Experience supporting large-scale cloud-native platforms.

Exempt

Salary Range:

The estimated base salary range for this role is USD$166,500.00 - USD$203,500.00 per year. We include salary ranges in job postings only where required by applicable pay transparency laws, based on the jurisdictions in which the role may be performed. The posted range is a good faith estimate and reflects factors that are subject to change. Final offer amounts may vary based on job-related factors, including work location, candidate experience and expertise, and other relevant considerations.

This role will also be eligible for participation in a Company profit sharing bonus plan. Plan details will be provided to you upon hire.

Full time employees will also be eligible for enrollment in a wide range of choices of benefits , including medical, dental, vision, basic life insurance, short/long term disability, 401(k) participation (with company match).

The Company provides a minimum of 10 days of vacation for new employees , sick time based on state requirements, 8 Company-paid holidays and 2 personal holidays per year.

We recognize the value and importance of diversity and inclusion in our communities and in the workplace. We celebrate diversity and one of our goals as an employer is to create an inclusive work environment for all employees. We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant because of race, religion, sex, sexual orientation including gender identity or expression, pregnancy, national origin, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other category or characteristic protected by law.

Applicants with disabilities who would like to require a reasonable accommodation related to any part of the application process may contact us at [email protected].

NOTE: If an applicant is selected to receive a conditional offer of employment, and in accordance with applicable law, a criminal background check may be conducted before the offer becomes final and employment begins. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, and other applicable laws, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

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