QA Engineering Lead

Job Title: QA Engineering Lead

Organisation: SafeBoda

Duty Station: Kampala, Uganda

About Organisation:

SafeBoda is a Ugandan-based startup that aims to make motorcycle taxis (bodas) and cars more safe, affordable, and convenient across Sub-Saharan Africa, with a goal to change the perception of public transportation as unsafe and disorganized by providing a safe and reliable service that is accessible to all.

Job Summary: This role requires you to take end-to-end ownership of quality across our mobile apps, web applications, and backend services, as a senior, hands-on QA leader. You’ll combine individual-contributor automation engineering, building test automation strategy and infrastructure from the ground up; with day-to-day leadership of a QA team. You will own and build the automation roadmap and automation frameworks, write automated tests, cultivate quality standards through leading and mentoring QA engineers, manage release readiness sign-offs and effectively communicate quality metrics to stakeholders.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Build and own SafeBoda’s test automation strategy end-to-end: design, write, and maintain automated test suites (API/E2E, Mobile UI, Web-frontend & backend) across all core backend services, all mobile applications and web applications.
• Integrate automated suites into CI/CD (Argo pipelines), with coverage reporting that is accurate and actionable, not just a percentage on a slide.
• Represent QA in cross-functional planning with PMs, Engineering, and DevOps to ensure realistic testing timelines are built into the roadmap from the start, not bolted on at the end.
• Lead and manage the day-to-day performance of QA engineers: set individual goals, run regular 1:1s, and actively develop the team’s automation and structured test-design skills.
• Define and enforce QA process standards: test case documentation, bug triage/severity criteria, release sign-off criteria, and regression scope per release.
• Own accurate, real-time visibility into QA capacity and ticket status (time-in-QA vs. time queued), replacing informal tracking with a defensible system of record.
• Partner with Engineering leads to resolve recurring bottlenecks before they hit QA; batched ticket arrival, incomplete or outdated feature documentation, missing requirement sign-off.
• Track production bug trends by service/feature over time (not single incidents), run retrospectives, and feed learnings back into automation and process priorities.
• Act as the quality gate for the releases across Android, iOS, and backend services; make and clearly communicate go/no-go recommendations.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• 5+ years in QA/software testing, including 2+ years in a lead or senior individual-contributor automation role.
• Proven hands-on experience building automated test suites from scratch, i.e. API testing (Postman/Newman, REST Assured, or similar) and mobile automation (Appium, Espresso/XCUITest, or similar).
• Working knowledge of CI/CD pipelines (Argo, Jenkins, GitLab CI, or similar) and integrating automated tests into them.
• Experience testing complex, multi-service backend systems i.e. microservices, async/event-driven flows; payment or wallet reconciliation experience is a strong plus.
• Experience managing or mentoring QA engineers, including performance management and skills development.
• Comfortable defining and defending QA metrics/OKRs to non-technical stakeholders.
• Prior experience in fintech, ride-hailing, delivery, or another high-transaction-volume consumer platform is a strong plus.
• Automation-first mindset: defaults to building repeatable, maintainable test infrastructure over manual repetition.
• Ownership & accountability: treats quality as their own deliverable, not a gate to route blame through.
• Structured communication: writes clear, self-contained tickets and status updates; calibrates technical depth to the audience.
• Coaching & people management: grows team members rather than simply directing them.
• Data-driven judgment: uses trend data to make quality and performance calls.
• Resilience under ambiguity: operates well with incomplete documentation and shifting priorities typical of a fast-moving platform.

How to Apply:

All candidates should send their updated CVs via Email to: [email protected]

NB: Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

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Level of Education: bachelor degree

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: 60