About the Role
Posit is seeking an experienced manager to drive software product quality and customer value, and to coach the talented, dedicated Quality Assurance engineers working on several on-premises products, including Posit Connect and an extension for Positron. These products are designed to make it easy for data scientists to publish high-quality, code-based analyses to tell stories with data and solve real-world problems.
You will lead both people and process from this position, and you will have a direct impact on the planning, design, execution, and overall quality of one of Posit’s most powerful product suites. We are looking for a product-minded leader with an excellent understanding of good software quality methodology, and the ability to put it into practice in a fast-paced environment.
At Posit, QA engineers are embedded in the product development teams, so this role is focused on
- enabling the QA engineers to define, direct, and assess the quality standards and testing strategy on their product teams,
- building confidence in quality at speed via increased test automation,
- challenging the entire product team to focus on customer value, and
- reinforcing and sustaining a culture that focuses on usability, supportability, and scalability in our software.
This role requires Python or data science fluency, as well as experience with front-end testing, building test automation frameworks, technical leadership, and team management.
What you will own
- Define and continuously improve the quality standards for our products, in collaboration with QA engineers, developers, product managers, designers, and leaders
- Measure, analyze, and report on product quality to identify areas for improvement and enhancement
- Guide the strategic direction and career development of the QA engineers on your team. Hire, onboard, train, and coach new QA engineers.
- Engage with test automation code alongside the QA engineers (review, mentor, contribute)
- Identify ways to make the user experience with our product smoother and more valuable
What you will help with
- Set clear standards, strategies, and expectations for the quality of the software being built
- Partner with Engineering and Product Management leaders to provide both high-level and day-to-day product team guidance, work prioritization, and release management
- Work with other QA managers and the VP of Product Quality to direct Posit’s overall quality approach
- Actively inspire user-centric, holistic, cross-product thinking across the entire engineering organization
What you will teach us
- Good mechanisms for instilling high-quality, user-centric mentality and method in our product teams
- New quality philosophies, testing techniques, product management patterns, or tools. We are a team that likes to learn, and would love to hear about your areas of expertise.
What you will learn
- A deeper understanding of cloud infrastructure and DevOps techniques to effectively deploy and test our software
- An appreciation for data science workflows and some of the tools and approaches used by data scientists.
- The Posit products and how they empower our customers to do effective data science through code.
Within one month, you will…
- Get to know everyone on the product team, and get familiar with our current software development and testing strategies and processes
- Learn our company and quality goals, and become familiar with our test planning, procedures, and frameworks
- Start building relationships with your direct reports, to understand their goals and how they align to the team’s objectives
- Understand the architecture of our test automation suites, and start contributing as a reviewer, coach, and creator (in Go, Python, and JavaScript, including Cypress)
Within three months, you will…
- Have a general understanding of our users’ objectives and how Posit Connect and the rest of our product suite helps them achieve those goals
- Actively participate in product and feature planning with other team leaders, and provide feedback on value, quality, and product direction based on user expectations
- Understand the design of our test plans, cases, and coverage, and guide the team to look for opportunities to continuously improve them
- Coach the team to evolve our test strategies and coverage, and contribute meaningfully to the design and content of our automation suites
- Think critically about our product quality standards, strategy, and measurement procedures, and working with the team to grow and improve them
- Start working with other product teams on the design, coordination, and execution of shared projects
- Establish trust with your direct reports, be familiar with their individual growth plans, and start looking for opportunities to enable their ongoing career development
- Engage with other leaders in Product Quality/QA to manage cross-functional projects geared toward continuous improvement in the value and quality of our software
Within six months, you will…
- Empower and enable QA engineers to ask the best questions and make the best decisions possible in the service of producing valuable, high-quality software
- Augment or start building tools to measure the level of product quality we have achieved, and analyze the outcomes to identify areas for improvement
- Work with leaders across the engineering organization to enhance our approach to product value and quality, focusing on holistic user experience as the driving force for positive change
Within a year, you will…
- Formulate strategies to ensure high-quality professional testing of our software products
- Work with product managers and engineering leaders to prioritize quality enhancements in both our products and processes
- Provide career development resources; grow leadership and enable technical achievement across the team
