QA Tech Lead (m/f/d)

Company Description

Publicis Media is the world's second largest media agency network and part of the French communications group Publicis Groupe. As a global holding company, Publicis Media lives through its global agency brands Zenith, Starcom and Spark, which manage and continuously develop the customer business in strategic communications consulting in over 100 countries. In addition, central teams of specialists at Publicis Media support the agencies' clients in these areas: Data and Technology, Analytics and Insights, Research, Content, Performance, Buying and Business Development.

Job Description

You will establish and scale Quality Assurance as a cross-cutting engineering capability across multiple cross-functional Scrum teams. In a matrix organization with distributed QA capacity, your mission is to:

• Enable teams to own quality end-to-end
• Build a scalable QA platform and operating model
• Drive automation, AI adoption, and engineering best practices

You act as a Functional Lead for QA Engineering. QA Engineers are embedded in cross-functional Scrum teams, working alongside Lead Developers, Software Engineers, DevOps Engineers and Technical Product Managers. You ensure alignment, standards, and quality consistency across all teams.

Responsibilities

• QA Strategy & Operating Model
  • Define and implement a scalable QA operating model across multiple teams
  • Establish clear QA standards, processes, and governance
  • Balance team autonomy with centralized QA best practice
  • Continuously evolve QA as a platform capability within Engineering
• Cross-Team Leadership in a Matrix Organization
  • Lead QA engineers across multiple cross-functional teams (functional leadership)
  • Ensure consistent QA practices, tools, and quality standards across all teams
  • Act as the central point of coordination for QA topics across engineering
• QA Enablement & Shared Ownership of Quality
  • Enable development teams to take shared ownership of quality (shift-left)
  • Collaborate closely with Lead Devs, DevOps Engineers, Technical Product Managers
  • Provide training, coaching, and guidelines for QA best practices
  • Reduce dependency on centralized QA execution through enablement
• Automation & QA Platform Engineering
  • Design and drive test automation strategies (smoke, regression, API, E2E)
  • Build reusable QA frameworks and integrate them into our Engineering Platform
  • Integrate automated testing into CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps, YAML)
  • Ensure scalability and maintainability of automation across teams
• AI-driven QA Innovation
  • Evaluate and implement AI-powered QA solutions, such as:
    • Test generation
    • Regression automation
    • Test coverage analysis
  • Use AI to improve efficiency and scalability of QA across multiple teams
• Quality Engineering & Governance
  • Define and enforce quality gates (e.g. SonarQube, pipeline checks)
  • Establish and track QA metrics (coverage, defects, release quality, etc.)
  • Implement monitoring, logging, and feedback loops for production quality
  • Ensure robust systems via performance, load, and security testing strategies
• Team Development & Scaling
  • Build and develop the QA team as it grows
  • Define specialization areas (e.g. automation, performance, exploratory testing)
  • Mentor QA engineers and support their career growth
  • Ensure high-quality execution and continuous improvement of QA practices

Qualifications

MUST HAVE

• 5+ years of experience in Quality Assurance and Software Engineering
• Proven experience in leading QA across multiple teams or products
• Strong expertise in test automation and QA architecture
• Experience working in a matrix organization and cross-functional teams
• Deep understanding of modern QA methodologies, tools, and processes
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD and automated testing integration
• Strong engineering background (ideally .NET / C# and distributed systems)
• Experience with AI-driven QA tools or strong interest in applying AI in QA

GOOD TO HAVE

• Experience with:
  • Test automation frameworks (e.g. Playwright, Selenium)
  • API testing (e.g. Postman)
  • Performance testing (e.g. JMeter, Azure Load Testing)
  • Cloud architectures (Azure, microservices, serverless)
  • Modern engineering platforms and internal developer portals (e.g. Port.io, Backstage).

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

• Within the first 6-12 months:
  • A clearly defined and adopted QA operating model across all teams
  • Consistent QA practices and standards across the organization
  • Significantly increased automation coverage and CI/CD integration
  • Development teams actively owning and executing quality practices
  • Successful introduction of AI-supported QA workflows
  • Quality Metrics and regular reporting
  • Improved product stability, performance, and release quality

Additional Information

What We Offer

• Good Work-Life Balance: With flexible working hours and hybrid work possible
• Appreciation: Regular discussions with supervisor for appreciation of work and to plan personal development
• Real team spirit: High level of collegiality and fun at work as well as joint celebrations and events.
• Working in global teams: Exciting and varied projects in a global environment (Germany, India, USA, UK, France, etc.)
• Strategic partner of Microsoft: Sponsored acquisition of Microsoft certificates and direct collaboration with Microsoft experts
• Further education and career: Continuous training and further education of our employees within the framework of Publicis Learning as well as diverse career perspectives in one of the world's largest agency networks

Your Benefits

Learn&Grow

• Development with a digital learning platform
• Individual career perspectives and structured development
• Extensive national and international development programs
• Open feedback culture with structured performance management
• Mentoring program

Work Your World

• Opportunity to work worldwide for up to 6 weeks per year

Flexible Work

• Hybrid work model
• Flexible working hours
• The "Notfallmamas" - company-supported emergency childcare
• Subsidy for the Deutschlandticket and BusinessBike

Feel Well

• Overtime compensation
• 30 days of vacation plus additional special leave days
• Agency sports activities | Urban Sports Club
• Mental Health Program and Working with Cancer Policy

Responsibility

• Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiatives
• Sustainability Squad
• Social projects

Your Start

• Welcome Week
• Buddy Program
• Intensive onboarding

We value diversity and are excited to learn how your previous experience could enrich our team.