Head of QA

hackajob is collaborating with Totalmobile to connect them with exceptional tech professionals for this role. Totalmobile is a Field Service Management (FSM) provider passionate about making work and the lives of mobile workers better. We are the UK leader with about 400 staff across the UK and Ireland, and we support over 1,000 organisations and 500,000 workers to transform the delivery of field services and experience an exceptional return on investment. We are the UK leader as we have an integrated product suite within FSM that has been crafted together through organic growth and eight strategic acquisitions over the last five years. This has made us one of the fastest growing software companies in the UK. Recently we have been expanding into Australia and the Nordic territories. As Head of QA, you will be responsible for building and leading a high-performing software testing team. You’ll define and drive the overall QA strategy, embedding a culture of quality across our development lifecycle. Working closely with Engineering, Product, and Cloud, you’ll ensure robust testing practices are in place to support frequent, reliable releases across our field first platform. You will also take ownership of QA tooling, automation, processes, and team development—ensuring both product quality and team capability continue to evolve. You will be accountable for defining, developing, and implementing a modern, scalable QA strategy across multiple product lines built on a mixture of technologies. You will be an influential communicator and leader, capable of shaping the QA function, motivating teams, collaborating cross‑functionally, and championing quality across the organisation. Key Responsibilities

• Define and own the overall QA strategy and vision across the engineering organisation.
• Establish a continuous improvement culture focused on quality, engineering excellence, and predictable delivery
• Establish and continually improve testing frameworks, automation strategies, and QA processes.
• Champion a shift-left testing mindset, working with developers and product managers to build quality in from the start.
• Define and report on quality metrics, defect trends, and release readiness
• Ensure test coverage across all levels: unit, integration, system, performance, and security.
• Drive the adoption of automated testing and CI/CD integration.
• Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to ensure smooth, high-quality releases.
• Manage QA resources and priorities across multiple teams or product areas.

Team Leadership & People Management

• Lead, inspire, and develop a multi‑disciplinary QA team across manual, automation, performance, and security testing specialisms.
• Set clear objectives, build capability, mentor team members, and manage performance and career development.
• Foster a collaborative, open, and accountable environment where testers feel empowered to contribute to product and engineering quality.

Quality Governance & Process Ownership

• Implement and maintain best‑practice QA processes, methodologies, frameworks, and standards across the organisation.
• Introduce structured testing approaches across functional and non‑functional domains (performance, volume, API, mobile, accessibility, regression, etc.).
• Establish and track quality‑related KPIs (defect leakage, automation coverage, cycle times, release readiness, etc.).
• Work with engineering leadership to embed quality gates and shift‑left practices in the SDLC.

Automation & Tooling

• Drive forward the existing QA Automation team, reviewing their current strategy, including frameworks, CI/CD integration, and selection of tools across UI, API, and mobile.
• Drive adoption of automation in regression, smoke, API testing, and performance testing across all Totalmobile products
• Oversee tooling budgets and vendor evaluations

Regulatory Compliance & Quality Standards

• Ensure QA practices are compliant with regulatory frameworks including ISO9001, ISO27001, GDPR, and sector‑specific requirements.
• Work closely with Compliance, Security, and Data Protection teams to maintain high standards of quality and audit readiness.
• Contribute to risk registers, security reviews, and external/internal audits.

Security & Non‑Functional Testing

• Oversee security testing practices including vulnerability scanning, penetration testing coordination, and secure SDLC initiatives.
• Own non‑functional testing strategies covering scalability, performance, volume, reliability, usability, and resilience.
• Drive service‑level validation in collaboration with Cloud/Platform engineering.

Cross‑Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Engineering, Product, Cloud/Platform, Customer Support, and Professional Services Delivery teams to ensure quality is embedded from requirements through release.
• Support incident analysis and post‑mortems by providing QA insights and improving preventative measures.
• Communicate risks, priorities, release readiness, and quality status clearly to senior stakeholders.
• Focus on the Quality Assurance strategy for the delivery of our core Field First Platform.

Key Skills And Experience

• Proven experience in a QA leadership role, ideally within a SaaS or cloud-based software environment.
• Demonstrable implementation of QA transformation across frameworks, automation, tooling, and process uplift.
• Strong knowledge of modern QA practices, automation frameworks, and testing methodologies (e.g. Agile, BDD, TDD) across both functional and non‑functional testing.
• Deep understanding of API testing, mobile testing, automation frameworks, and performance testing.
• Hands-on experience with test automation tools (e.g., Cypress, Selenium, Playwright, Postman, etc.).
• Familiar with CI/CD pipelines and integrating automated testing into release workflows.
• Solid understanding of REST APIs, databases, and browser-based application testing.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience building , managing, mentoring, and scaling high-performing QA teams with a range/mix of manual and automation testing across functional and non-functional disciplines.
• Passion for quality, continuous improvement, and coaching others.
• Pragmatic, outcome focused, and able to adapt QA processes to suit product maturity and pace
• Collaborative mindset; able to balance business needs with technical constraints.

Desirable

• Experience with performance testing tools.
• Exposure to security testing practices and tools.
• Familiarity with tools like Jira, TestRail, GitHub, Azure DevOps, etc.
• ISTQB certification or equivalent is a plus.
• Experience working in Field Service Management or similar operational/enterprise SaaS domains.
• Familiarity with DevOps practices, and cloud platforms (AWS/Azure).

Success Measures

• Demonstrable uplift in automation coverage and reduced manual regression overhead.
• Reduction in escaped defects and improved release confidence.
• Improved performance, scalability, and stability metrics across products.
• High engagement and performance within the QA team.
• Positive cross‑functional feedback on QA collaboration, communication, and leadership.
• Strong compliance posture aligned to ISO and GDPR obligations.

Here at Totalmobile, we want all of our employees to feel valued, appreciated, and free to be who they are at work. We are committed to an inclusive workforce that fully represents many different cultures, backgrounds and viewpoints. We are dedicated to supporting inclusion and diversity at Totalmobile. We actively celebrate colleagues’ different abilities, sexual orientation, ethnicity, faith, and gender. Everyone is welcome and supported in their development at all stages in their journey with us.