About this role
The QA Team Lead is a hands-on technical leadership role guiding GS1 Canada’s quality engineering practice across our engineering projects and data exchange services. Reporting to the QA Manager, you will drive the test automation strategy, mentor QA Engineers, and champion quality at every iteration within a hybrid Agile environment. This role bridges manual exploratory testing and robust automated coverage, with a strong emphasis on Playwright (TypeScript) and Selenium (Java). You will work closely with Developers, DevOps, Architects, Product Owners, and Business Analysts to ensure every release meets our quality gates before progressing through the Secure SDLC. Test Automation Leadership Design, build, and maintain the automated test suite using Playwright (TypeScript/JavaScript) for UI/API and Selenium (Java) for legacy and integration coverage. Define and enforce automation standards, coding conventions, and best practices across the QA team. Integrate automated suites into Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines with quality gates on every pull request and deployment stage. Use the approved QA toolchain — LambdaTest for cross-browser/device execution, KaneAI for AI-assisted test authoring, and the GS1 AI Workbench (Claude) — to accelerate test design, coverage analysis, and defect triage. Team Leadership & Mentorship Lead, coach, and mentor QA Engineers across automation and exploratory testing. Run regular test-script code reviews with constructive feedback to uphold automation quality. Partner with the QA Manager on team performance, workload planning, and development; act as a quality escalation point in sprint ceremonies and defect triage. Quality Strategy & Process Own the end-to-end test strategy for assigned domains — functional, regression, integration, performance, and accessibility. Define and track QA KPIs (defect escape rate, automation coverage, cycle time, MTTD). Maintain and improve Quality Gate criteria within the Secure SDLC, including HITL review checkpoints for AI-assisted test generation; drive shift-left testing via BDD/TDD. Collaboration, Tooling & Reporting Work with Architects to understand system boundaries, event-driven flows, and API contracts in the Platform 3.0 DDD architecture; ensure acceptance criteria are testable and traceable. Manage the QA toolchain in Azure DevOps (test plans, suites, defect tracking). Produce clear quality reports and dashboards for the QA Manager and VP; support GAW telemetry and Squared Up dashboards with QA metrics.