Head of QA (Product Quality)

X-FLOW is a mobile game development company established in 2018. We gained recognition after the release of Happy Color, the most popular digital coloring book and one of the most successful ad-driven mobile apps in the world. We take pride in our diverse and talented team and partners, spread across the UK, Cyprus, the Netherlands, and other regions worldwide. 

We are looking for a Head of Quality Engineering to own product-level quality for Happy Color and lead the transformation from predominantly manual testing toward a measurable Quality Engineering function. This is not a role focused on coordinating a manual QA pool.

Backend/API QA, Client QA, and FADS QA teams are responsible for testing their respective components. The Head of Quality Engineering leads the Product Quality function, which performs independent product acceptance, validates cross-domain scenarios, controls critical regression and user experience, and provides the final quality assessment before release.

Key Responsibilities:

Product quality ownership

• Own the product-level quality strategy and its implementation roadmap.
• Define release-readiness criteria and provide an independent assessment of product quality.
• Take responsibility for acceptance testing of the product as a whole.
• Validate cross-domain flows across mobile clients, backend services, analytics, advertising, consent, payments, and other integrations.
• Identify systemic product risks that cannot be detected within a single engineering domain.
• Require teams to improve builds, test results, documentation, or other quality artifacts when they do not meet agreed standards.

Quality Engineering transformation

• Lead the transition from predominantly manual testing toward a balanced Quality Engineering model.
• Build sustainable E2E and regression automation for critical product scenarios.
• Introduce quality gates into CI/CD pipelines.
• Improve test environments, test data, reporting, and automation stability.
• Introduce risk-based testing, shift-left practices, and appropriate AI-assisted QA tools.
• Reduce regression time and release uncertainty without sacrificing product quality.

Product Quality team leadership

• Build and lead the Product Quality team responsible for:
  • product acceptance;
  • critical regression;
  • E2E testing;
  • user-experience validation;
  • E2E and regression automation.
• Hire, develop, and mentor manual QA, automation, and SDET engineers.
• Assess existing QA engineers and define appropriate development paths based on skills, motivation, and demonstrated results.
• Establish clear ownership, expectations, and measurable outcomes for every team member.

Matrix quality leadership

• Coordinate the quality function across Backend QA, Client QA, and other QA.
• Work with engineering leaders to ensure that component-level testing is completed before Product Quality acceptance.
• Establish common quality standards, metrics, and audit practices across QA teams.
• Conduct regular quality reviews and identify gaps in domain-level testing.
• Ensure that standards reflect the needs of all QA directions rather than one specific platform or domain.
• Act as the technical owner of QA standards or appoint and support an appropriate Quality Engineering Technical Lead.

Data-driven quality management

• Define and monitor meaningful quality indicators, including:
  • escaped defects;
  • critical regression coverage;
  • automation stability and flaky-test rate;
  • regression duration;
  • release-blocking defects;
  • defects at system boundaries;
  • production and support trends.
• Use analytics, support cases, incidents, and production signals to identify areas requiring additional coverage.
• Present product-quality risks and improvement progress to engineering and product leadership.

Requirements:

• 5+ years of experience in QA or Quality Engineering.
• 3+ years in a QA leadership or Quality Engineering leadership role.
• Strong product mindset, with the ability to identify user, business, and systemic risks—not just verify compliance with documented requirements.
• Proven experience transforming manual testing into an engineering-driven quality function.
• Experience building or significantly improving E2E and regression automation.
• Strong understanding of test automation architecture, CI/CD integration, test environments, and quality gates.
• Ability to review automation approaches, framework architecture, code quality, and engineering practices.
• Experience testing high-scale mobile applications or games.
• Strong knowledge of:
  • mobile application testing;
  • backend and API testing;
  • distributed and cross-system scenarios;
  • analytics validation, including Firebase;
  • databases and SQL-based platforms;
  • advertising and attribution systems such as Adjust or AppsFlyer;
  • release and production quality management.
• Experience working with Android Studio, Xcode, Charles Proxy or similar tools, API clients, and mobile automation frameworks.
• Strong leadership skills and the ability to influence teams in a matrix structure.
• Ability to make difficult quality decisions and clearly explain product risks.
• Russian — fluent.
• English — Intermediate or higher.

Nice to Have:

• Experience with ad-driven mobile products.
• Experience testing monetization, consent, GDPR/CCPA, payments, or analytics.
• Experience building SDET or automation teams.
• Experience applying AI tools to testing, test design, defect analysis, or QA operations.
• Experience working with incident, support, and production data.

What Success Looks Like:

During the first months, the Head of Quality Engineering is expected to:

• establish the Product Quality function and its responsibilities;
• define the interaction between Backend QA, Client QA and Product Quality;
• introduce transparent product-acceptance criteria;
• identify critical E2E and regression scenarios;
• create a prioritized automation roadmap;
• launch measurable improvements to automation, CI quality gates, and regression speed;
• provide leadership with a transparent view of product readiness and quality risks.
  

What We Offer:

• Competitive salary and benefits package.
• Opportunity to work with a talented and passionate team in a creative and dynamic environment.
• Flexible working hours and remote/office work options.
• Career growth and professional development opportunities.
• A fun and inclusive company culture that celebrates diversity and creativity.