The Engineering Manager owns the working relationship between our offshore QA team and the client's onshore mobile development squads, so that quality is built into delivery rather than inspected at the end. This is a hands-on leadership role: part people manager, part process owner, part cross-timezone diplomat. Location / hours:
Poland (preferably Warsaw). Core hours overlap with the onshore team: 9am-midday PST, with flexibility for releases Product context:
A major, widely used consumer mobile app on iOS and Android with frequent releases and a large, diverse device and OS footprint Responsibilities
Cross-team collaboration (core of the role) Act as the single point of accountability for QA–dev working agreements: definition of ready/done, bug triage SLAs, handoff expectations, escalation paths Embed QA earlier in the lifecycle: QA participation in refinement, three-amigos sessions, acceptance criteria reviews and design walkthroughs Design async-first communication across time zones: written handoffs, shared dashboards, clear ownership of overnight test runs and morning status Run recurring forums that fix problems rather than report them: cross-team quality sync, release readiness review, escape/defect retrospectives Resolve friction between QA and squads early (ambiguous bug reports, flaky tests, late builds, scope changes) and build lasting trust on both sides Quality and release delivery Partner with squad EMs and tech leads on release trains, regression scope, go/no-go criteria and hotfix procedures Drive a risk-based test strategy for iOS and Android, including device/OS coverage, accessibility, localization and performance Champion test automation (UI, API, contract) and CI/CD integration so feedback reaches developers in minutes, not days Reduce flaky tests and escaped defects through root-cause analysis and shared ownership between QA and developers People leadership Manage, coach and grow the offshore QA engineers and leads: goals, performance feedback, career paths, hiring and onboarding Build a culture where QA engineers are seen as engineering partners with a voice in product decisions Maintain team health and capacity planning; prevent burnout during release crunches Governance and reporting Define and report quality metrics to client leadership and our delivery leadership (see success metrics below) Keep the client relationship healthy: proactive status, transparent risks, clear communication of trade-offs Contribute to continuous improvement of tooling, templates and playbooks that can be reused across the account Requirements
Candidates who miss any of these will struggle in the role, so we screen on them first. Experience 8+ years in software engineering or QA, with 3+ years managing engineers (ideally including managers-of-leads or multiple sub-teams) Proven track record leading QA or quality engineering for
mobile applications
(iOS and/or Android) shipped to a large user base Direct experience working across
distributed, multi-time-zone teams , ideally between an offshore/nearshore vendor team and onshore product engineering Hands- on familiarity with the mobile delivery lifecycle: sprint cadence, release trains, staged rollouts, app store submission and hotfix handling Technical credibility Solid understanding of test strategy and test pyramid for mobile: unit, integration, UI, API, device-farm and exploratory testing Working knowledge of test automation frameworks and practices (e.g., XCUITest, Espresso, or equivalents), enough to review architecture and challenge approach Experience with CI/CD pipelines, defect tracking and test management tools (e.g., Jira, TestRail, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Bitrise) Able to speak the language of developers: code review basics, build and release pipelines, crash analytics and observability Collaboration and leadership Demonstrated ability to
improve QA–dev collaboration , with concrete examples such as shortened feedback loops, fewer escaped defects or better triage Strong written and verbal English; skilled at clear, concise async communication Able to influence without authority: comfortable pushing back respectfully on engineering managers and product leads Coaching mindset: has grown junior and mid-level engineers, handled underperformance and built team cohesion Data-driven: defines, tracks and acts on quality and delivery metrics Comfortable in a client-facing role, including executive-level status reporting and escalation handling These raise a candidate's ranking but should not rule anyone out. Prior experience as an SDET or mobile developer, which gives credibility with squads and helps with test architecture decisions Experience at a
product company
or on the client side of a vendor relationship, for empathy with the squad's perspective Familiarity with
shift-left and shift-right practices : feature flags, canary releases, A/B testing, production monitoring and crash-free-rate targets Exposure to AI-assisted testing tools, test generation or intelligent test selection, and a view on where they help or hurt
Engineering Manager Central Europe in Warsaw – pracodawca: Zoolatech
Zoolatech to doskonały pracodawca, który oferuje wyjątkowe możliwości rozwoju zawodowego w dynamicznym środowisku technologicznym w Polsce. Nasza kultura pracy opiera się na innowacyjności i współpracy, co pozwala inżynierom AI na realizację ambitnych projektów oraz mentoring młodszych kolegów. Oferujemy konkurencyjne wynagrodzenie, elastyczne godziny pracy oraz dostęp do najnowszych technologii, co czyni nas idealnym miejscem dla tych, którzy pragną mieć realny wpływ na rozwój inteligentnych systemów.
