Quality Assurance Manager - Colossus, Incorporated

Leadership and Team Management:

• Lead, mentor, and manage the QA team, ensuring they are well-trained and equipped to deliver high-quality testing and validation activities across all Caliber products.
• Define clear roles, responsibilities, and performance expectations for the QA team, fostering a culture of accountability, quality, and continuous improvement.
• Provide regular feedback, coaching, and professional development opportunities to QA team members.

Test Strategy and Execution:

• Develop and implement a comprehensive QA strategy that ensures thorough testing of public safety software products across multiple platforms (e.g., desktop, mobile, cloud).
• Lead the creation and execution of test plans, test cases, and test scripts that cover all functional and non-functional aspects of software products, including performance, usability, security, acceptance, and compliance testing.
• Ensure that performance and load testing are integral parts of the testing strategy, particularly given the real-time, mission-critical nature of public safety systems.
• Ensure the timely execution of all testing activities, including manual and automated testing, integration testing, regression testing, and user acceptance testing (UAT).
• Oversee the use of automated testing tools and frameworks to increase testing efficiency and coverage.

Quality Assurance Processes:

• Establish and maintain QA processes and best practices throughout the software development lifecycle, ensuring that testing is fully integrated into agile development processes.
• Collaborate with development, product management, and engineering teams to ensure that quality is built into every stage of the product lifecycle.
• Implement test-driven development (TDD) and behavior-driven development (BDD) practices where applicable to drive continuous improvement in quality and testing efficiency.
• Define and report key quality metrics such as defect rates, test coverage, and product reliability, providing regular updates to senior leadership and ensuring that quality aligns with the organization’s overall objectives.

Risk Management and Compliance:

• Identify and manage risks related to product quality and reliability, particularly in the context of public safety and regulatory requirements such as Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS), SOC, ADA Title II, and HIPAA, compliance.
• Ensure the QA team adheres to all security protocols and industry standards, particularly for handling sensitive data in mission-critical environments.
• Drive quality metrics and performance measures to ensure ongoing compliance with industry and regulatory standards.

Defect Management and Resolution:

• Oversee defect management processes, ensuring that issues are properly identified, logged, tracked, and resolved in a timely manner.
• Collaborate with development teams to perform root cause analysis on defects and ensure that appropriate corrective actions are taken.
• Provide visibility into quality issues, risks, and mitigation strategies through regular reporting and metrics tracking.

Collaboration and Communication:

• Work closely with product management, development, and customer support teams to ensure alignment between product requirements and testing outcomes.
• Act as the primary liaison for QA activities during customer engagements, providing expertise on testing methodologies and ensuring that customer quality expectations are met.
• Facilitate regular QA meetings and communicate testing results, quality metrics, and risk assessments to senior leadership and other stakeholders.

Continuous Improvement:

• Continuously assess QA tools, technologies, and methodologies, recommending and implementing improvements that enhance the team's efficiency and effectiveness.
• Stay up to date with emerging trends, tools, and best practices in quality assurance and software testing, particularly those relevant to public safety software systems.

Required Skills and Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field. Equivalent work experience will also be considered.
• Experience: 5-7 years of experience in software quality assurance, with at least 2-3 years in a management or leadership role. Experience in the public safety, government, or regulated industries is highly desirable.
• Technical Skills:
  • Strong experience in manual and automated testing methods, including test case creation, execution, and reporting.
  • Proficiency in automated testing tools and frameworks, such as Selenium, Katalan, JUnit, TestNG, or similar.
  • Experience with API testing tools (e.g., Postman, SoapUI) and familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices.
  • Knowledge of test management tools (e.g., Jira, TestRail) for tracking and managing test cases, defects, and test execution results.
  • Solid understanding of public safety systems (e.g., CAD, RMS) and the technical and compliance requirements for these mission-critical platforms.
  • Familiarity with security and compliance standards, particularly CJIS and how they impact software testing.
  • Proficient in Jira and confluence is required, administration experience preferred.
• Soft Skills:
  • Strong leadership and team management skills, with the ability to motivate and guide teams toward success.
  • Excellent communication and collaboration skills, capable of working across departments to ensure quality is built into every phase of development.
  • Highly organized and detail-oriented, with strong problem-solving skills to address complex testing challenges.
  • Ability to manage multiple testing projects and priorities simultaneously in a fast-paced, high-stakes environment.
  • Experience with the scrum framework, including scrum events and roles.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience in public safety software testing, including familiarity with law enforcement, fire, and EMS systems.
• Experience implementing quality metric dashboards.
• QA certifications such as ISTQB, Certified Software Quality Analyst (CSQA), or Certified Manager of Software Quality (CMSQ) is highly recommended.
• Experience with performance testing tools (e.g., JMeter).