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QA Analyst Leader (Waterfall QA)

iSpace, IncTorrance, CA🇺🇸United StatesPosted 8 Sept 2026

Why This Role Stands Out

This role offers a significant opportunity to shape the QA strategy for a large-scale modernization effort, allowing you to showcase your leadership and drive impactful results within a reputable company. If you are a proactive, detail-oriented QA professional with strong waterfall experience who thrives on leading teams and ensuring project success, you will find this position incredibly rewarding. Apply today to leverage your expertise and contribute to a critical initiative!

Quick Overview

Seniority
Mid Senior
Work mode
On Site
Location
Torrance, CA, United States
Posted
Yesterday
AWSAgileReconciliationTriageWaterfall

Job Description

Title: QA Analyst Leader (Waterfall QA)
Location: Torrance, CA (Hybrid of 4 days/week onsite and 1 day/week remote)
Contract Duration: September 2026 – December 31, 2027
This Senior QA Lead will plan, lead, and drive quality assurance activities across a complex enterprise modernization effort. This role requires an experienced, hands-on QA leader who can create the QA strategy, build detailed test plans, lead test teams, coordinate across multiple cross-functional workstreams, and provide detailed QA status reporting. The ideal candidate is proactive, structured, detail-oriented, and able to drive delivery rather than simply take direction.
This position requires strong waterfall and hybrid QA experience . Please note that candidates with only Agile delivery experience are not preferred unless they can demonstrate proven waterfall test planning, formal test execution, dependency management, stage-gate discipline, and release readiness support.

The ideal candidate will be a highly accomplished QA and Test Delivery leader with a track record of successfully leading enterprise-scale implementations involving complex system integrations, modernization efforts, and multi-stakeholder environments. This individual will have a combination of hands-on testing expertise, strong project management discipline, and executive-level communication skills to drive quality, mitigate risk, and ensure successful program outcomes.
Responsibilities will include the following:
  • Own and drive the overall QA strategy, test planning, test readiness, execution tracking, defect management, and QA reporting for assigned program scope.
  • Create and maintain detailed test plans, test schedules, test scenarios, test cases, entry and exit criteria, test data plans, environment readiness plans, and sign-off checkpoints.
  • Lead QA execution across business teams, IT teams, vendor teams, SaaS platform teams, downstream application teams, integration teams, infrastructure teams, security teams, and legacy/mainframe teams.
  • Stay hands-on with testing details, including test coverage, test execution progress, defect status, test data readiness, environment readiness, dependencies, risks, and open decisions.
  • Drive daily or regular QA checkpoints during test execution and ensure progress, blockers, defects, decisions, and next steps are clearly documented.
  • Identify and escalate QA risks, issues, blockers, and dependency gaps early with clear impact, recommended options, and management actions needed.
  • Lead defect triage and coordinate resolution across application, integration, vendor, downstream, and business teams.
  • Ensure traceability from requirements to test cases, test execution results, defects, and release readiness decisions.
  • Prepare detailed QA status reports with measurable progress, defect metrics, accomplishments, upcoming activities, risks, issues, dependency status, and decision needs.
  • Support release readiness, go/no-go preparation, stakeholder communication, production validation planning, and post-test lessons learned.
Required Skills and Expertise:
  • Senior-level QA leadership experience supporting large-scale enterprise modernization, transformation, or complex system implementation programs.
  • Proven ability to develop and execute QA strategies, test plans, test cases, test schedules, test data plans, and defect management processes.
  • Extensive experience leading cross-functional QA teams across business, technology, vendor, upstream, and downstream stakeholders.
  • Strong expertise in waterfall and hybrid delivery methodologies, including phase-based planning, formal test cycles, stage gates, signoffs, dependency management, risk mitigation, and executive reporting.
  • Experience serving in senior QA leadership roles such as QA Lead, Test Lead, QA Manager, or Test Delivery Lead.
  • Hands-on leadership of end-to-end QA delivery for large enterprise programs involving multiple system integrations and complex stakeholder environments.
  • Expertise managing all testing phases, including system integration testing (SIT), regression testing, end-to-end testing, user acceptance testing (UAT) support, production readiness testing, and release validation.
  • Strong knowledge of test management tools, including test case oversight, execution tracking, defect triage, risk visibility, reporting dashboards, and cross-team coordination.
  • Experience developing automation testing strategies, implementing automation frameworks, and leveraging automation to improve regression coverage and delivery efficiency.
  • Strong project management skills encompassing planning, milestone tracking, dependency management, risk and issue resolution, action item follow-up, and status reporting.
  • Ability to influence and collaborate effectively across business SMEs, IT teams, vendors, product teams, project managers, and executive stakeholders.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present QA metrics, risks, progress, and recommendations to leadership.
  • Highly organized, proactive, accountable, detail-oriented, and effective in driving delivery within complex, fast-paced, and ambiguous environments.
Desired Skills and Expertise:
  • Experience testing SaaS platforms, including configuration testing, integration testing, release validation, vendor coordination, and service-level considerations.
  • Exposure to AWS or other cloud platforms, with experience supporting environment readiness, connectivity, security, performance, and integration validation.
  • Experience testing within large enterprise ecosystems involving downstream systems, interface dependencies, batch processing, data conversion, reconciliation, and production readiness activities.
  • Mainframe or legacy system testing experience, including batch validation, regression testing, data comparison, interface testing, and impact analysis.
  • Experience supporting modernization initiatives involving legacy-to-modern platform migrations, data conversion, integration redesign, and parallel-run validation.
  • Background in automotive, finance, warranty, vehicle service contracts, claims, contract administration, dealer-facing systems, or other regulated industries.
Required Competencies:
  • Waterfall QA Leadership: Ability to build structured QA plans, manage formal test cycles, validate entry/exit criteria, and support release sign-off.
  • Hands-On Testing Expertise: Deep understanding of test coverage, test data, defect management, integrations, and downstream impacts.
  • Cross-Functional Leadership: Ability to lead QA initiatives across business, IT, vendor, SaaS, cloud, and legacy platform teams.
  • Automation Strategy: Practical application of test automation to improve quality, repeatability, and delivery confidence.
  • Project Management Discipline: Strong ownership of plans, milestones, risks, issues, dependencies, decisions, and action items.
  • Executive Communication: Ability to deliver detailed QA status reporting with clear metrics, accomplishments, risks, blockers, and recommended actions.
  • Delivery Ownership: Proactively identifies gaps, drives decisions, escalates issues appropriately, and ensures successful completion of deliverables.

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