Lead Quality Assurance Engineer

Lead QA Automation Engineer (AI-Native & Security-Aware)

New York (Hybrid - 3 days on-site) | $150K–$185K Base | Full-Time

We're hiring on behalf of a well-funded, early-stage technology company in Midtown Manhattan. Small senior engineering team, high autonomy, real ownership. The platform operates in a stable, regulated industry with long-term demand.

This is not a maintenance role. You would own the entire QA function - reimagining automation through the lens of agentic AI and introducing security-aware testing practices as the platform scales. You'd report directly to the CTO and work alongside recently hired leads in backend engineering, data, and product.

What you'd be doing:

• Own and evolve the QA automation framework for an AI-assisted development environment
• Build testing pipelines that work alongside AI-accelerated feature delivery
• Introduce security-aware testing into CI/CD - vulnerability scanning, AppSec automation, penetration testing concepts
• Partner with backend and data engineering leads on release quality standards
• Build toward a model where QA and security validation scale with the team, not against it

What we're looking for:

• 7+ years in QA engineering with hands-on automation (Playwright, Cypress, Selenium, or equivalent)
• Actively using AI tools in your workflow - not just aware of them, but building a point of view on how they change testing
• Genuine familiarity with application security concepts - DAST/SAST, pen testing basics, vulnerability scanning
• You've owned QA end-to-end in a fast-moving environment and set the standards, not just followed them
• Strong communicator who can operate autonomously in a lean team

Nice to have:

• Experience in fintech or regulated-adjacent industries
• Exposure to agentic pipelines or LLM-integrated applications
• Security certifications (CEH, OSCP)
• Startup experience

JS/TS stack. Node backend. Equity, health insurance, 401K, flexible PTO.

If you want ownership, direct access to engineering leadership, and the chance to define what modern QA looks like in an agentic development environment.