Lead QA Engineer

About the role

We’re looking for a QA Engineer to join our fast-moving engineering team at Stack AI in San Francisco. You’ll play a key role in ensuring the reliability, scalability, and usability of the platform that powers AI-driven workflows for thousands of users.

This is a hands-on role for someone who’s deeply curious about how things work, loves to break them (safely), and wants to help us deliver the most stable, polished version of Stack AI possible. You’ll work closely with engineers, product managers, and designers to test features, build automated QA systems, and shape our quality culture from the ground up.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

You’ll be the first dedicated QA hire, setting the foundation for automated testing, release validation, and reliability metrics across the entire product surface.

Test Planning & Execution

- Design, write, and execute test plans for new features across web, API, and backend systems.

- Develop and maintain automated test suites (unit, integration, end-to-end) for a modern TypeScript + Python stack.

- Run regression and performance tests before major releases.

- Identify, document, and verify bugs in collaboration with engineers.

Automation & Tooling

- Own and extend our test automation framework (Cypress, Playwright, or similar).

- Integrate testing into CI/CD pipelines to catch regressions early.

- Use tools like Postman or k6 to validate APIs and load behavior.

- Contribute to improving observability (logs, alerts, dashboards) to detect quality issues early.

Collaboration & Process

- Partner with Product and Engineering to understand user workflows and identify high-risk areas.

- Collaborate directly with developers to debug issues and verify fixes.

- Help document and standardize QA processes for future hires.

- Participate in code reviews, release planning, and sprint retrospectives.

WHAT YOU’LL BRING

- 2–4 years of experience in QA, Test Automation, or Software Testing.

- Must be proficient in Python

- Strong familiarity with JavaScript/TypeScript (Cypress, Playwright, or Jest) and Python-based testing frameworks (PyTest, unittest).

- Experience testing APIs (REST/GraphQL) and web applications end-to-end.

- Solid understanding of software lifecycles, Git, and CI/CD (GitHub Actions, Render, or similar).

- Strong attention to detail and a love for building reliable, maintainable systems.

- Excellent communication skills and collaborative mindset, especially when working cross-functionally.

NICE TO HAVE

- Experience testing AI/ML systems, data pipelines, or model outputs.

- Familiarity with backend infrastructure (Temporal, PostgreSQL, Redis, Docker, FastAPI).

- Performance or security testing experience.