Quality Assurance (QA) Lead

At AmaWaterways, we believe meaningful careers begin with purpose, passion and a shared commitment to delivering unforgettable experiences. For those who value curiosity, connection and personal enrichment, AmaWaterways offers the opportunity to help craft meaningful river journeys that invite travelers to follow their own current. Built on a foundation of heartfelt hospitality, we treat our guests—and each other—with genuine care, warmth and respect. AmaWaterways fosters a collaborative environment both onboard our ships and across our global network of offices, where team members grow together, support one another and take pride in upholding the high standards and thoughtful service our company is known for.

We invite talented, motivated professionals to explore our career opportunities and begin their journey with AmaWaterways today.

Summary

AmaWaterways is seeking an experienced and technically proficient Quality Assurance (QA) Lead to oversee quality assurance operations, testing strategies, automation initiatives, and release readiness across the company's digital platforms and technology systems.

This position is responsible for leading a team of QA Engineers, establishing testing priorities, driving automation improvements, and ensuring the reliability, functionality, accessibility, security, and performance of business-critical applications.

The QA Lead will serve as a key partner to Engineering, Product, Data, IT Operations, and external technology vendors, supporting continuous improvement of testing processes and the successful delivery of technology initiatives.

The ideal candidate combines hands-on technical expertise with strong leadership, problem-solving, and communication skills and can balance strategic quality initiatives with day-to-day testing responsibilities in a fast-paced environment.

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

1. QA Team Leadership and Management

• Lead, mentor, and coordinate a team of three QA Engineers, establishing weekly priorities and distributing assignments across projects, production releases, and Service Desk support.
• Provide technical direction, coaching, and ongoing feedback to strengthen team capabilities, testing standards, and overall performance.
• Represent the QA function in leadership meetings, project discussions, release planning, and external vendor engagements.
• Prepare and deliver weekly QA status reports summarizing team activities, project progress, upcoming priorities, risks, blockers, and action items.
• Conduct weekly QA team meetings to review testing plans, automation coverage, operational challenges, and outstanding deliverables.
• Establish clear accountability for QA assignments, including owners, timelines, and follow-up actions.
• Provide QA sign-off recommendations and assess release readiness based on testing results, identified risks, and established quality criteria.
• Maintain and enhance QA documentation within Confluence, including knowledge management resources, standardized processes, and onboarding materials.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders and third-party providers to align testing activities with business objectives and delivery schedules.
• Test Automation and Quality Engineering
• Own, maintain, and continuously improve the Playwright end-to-end automation framework within Azure DevOps.
• Design, develop, and execute automated test scripts for new features, enhancements, and existing applications.
• Investigate and resolve unstable automated tests, execution failures, and changes affecting automation reliability.
• Develop automated monitoring and validation checks to proactively identify business-critical issues, including pricing inaccuracies, missing content, and unexpected system behavior.
• Evaluate the impact of new tools, integrations, and personalization technologies on automated test coverage and stability.
• Identify opportunities to expand automation coverage, reduce repetitive manual testing, and increase testing efficiency.
• Apply secure development practices to automation frameworks, including appropriate protection of credentials, secrets, and sensitive information.
• CI/CD Pipeline and Release Quality Assurance
• Maintain and optimize QA automation pipelines within Azure DevOps, including smoke testing, execution reporting, baseline comparisons, and automated notifications.
• Analyze pipeline failures to identify application defects, environmental issues, or test script failures.
• Support regularly scheduled production releases and emergency hotfixes through staging validation, ticket verification, regression testing, and post-deployment smoke testing.
• Coordinate with Engineering and DevOps teams to establish and improve automated quality checks and release gates.
• Evaluate release risks and communicate testing results, outstanding defects, and recommendations to appropriate stakeholders.
• Support continuous improvement of deployment processes to enhance reliability and minimize production disruptions.
• API, Integration, and Backend Testing
• Develop and execute API test plans using Postman, including functional, contract, authentication, authorization, negative, security-related, and error-handling scenarios.
• Build and maintain reusable Postman collections for internal APIs, microservices, and integrated business systems.
• Validate backend services developed using .NET Azure Functions, Azure API Management, and Azure Service Bus.
• Test service integrations, messaging workflows, error handling, dead-letter queues, monitoring, and recovery processes.
• Identify and investigate silent system failures, incomplete transactions, and unexpected integration behavior.
• Conduct resilience, recovery, and baseline performance testing to validate system reliability.
• Test integrations with external technology platforms, including content management, chatbot, email delivery, and CRM solutions.
• Database and Data Quality Assurance
• Validate data accuracy, integrity, and consistency across content management systems, APIs, databases, and catching platforms.
• Perform data validation across Azure Cosmos DB, Redis, and other enterprise systems.
• Test ETL processes, system data loads, and data migration activities to identify discrepancies, missing records, and synchronization issues.
• Collaborate with Data Engineering and development teams to investigate and resolve data quality defects.
• Conduct targeted data audits to identify pricing gaps, incomplete records, and content inconsistencies across digital platforms.
• Write and execute SQL queries to establish test data, validate results, and support defect investigations.
• Verify data recovery and consistency following system disruptions or integration failures.
• Test Planning, Documentation, and Defect Management
• Own and maintain test case management processes within Qase, including test suites, regression plans, release testing, and reporting dashboards.
• Develop comprehensive test strategies, test plans, and acceptance criteria for new applications, enhancements, and backend services.
• Review Business Requirements Documents (BRDs), Product Requirements Documents (PRDs), Technical Design Documents (TDDs), and user stories to identify potential risks and requirement gaps.
• Participate in backlog refinement, sprint planning, and technical discussions to ensure quality considerations are addressed early in development.
• Investigate reported issues across front-end applications, APIs, databases, integrations, content, and system configurations.
• Document defects in Jira with clear reproduction steps, supporting evidence, severity assessments, and expected outcomes.
• Collaborate with developers and business stakeholders to resolve defects, perform retesting, and verify corrective actions.
• Support production incident investigations, impact assessments, root cause analysis, and escalated Service Desk requests.
• Accessibility, Security, and Compliance Testing
• Serve as the primary QA point of contact for digital accessibility testing and validation.
• Evaluate consumer-facing websites, booking systems, check-in applications, PDFs, and third-party components against WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility standards and applicable requirements.
• Coordinate accessibility testing, remediation verification, and related initiatives with internal teams and external accessibility partners.
• Validate application security fixes, dependency upgrades, vulnerability remediation, and code-scanning findings in coordination with Engineering and Security teams.
• Perform appropriate security-related test scenarios, including authentication, authorization, input validation, and injection protection.
• Support the investigation and verification of security alerts associated with legitimate QA testing activities.
• Strategic Projects and Cross-Functional Collaboration
• Lead QA planning, execution, and quality validation for key AmaWaterways technology initiatives, including website modernization, booking enhancements, pricing and availability improvements, content platforms, notification services, and digital accessibility.
• Support projects such as AmaVega, AmaKaizen, AmaBrico, AmaVia, the Atlas API, the Itinerary PDF Generation Platform, and the Better Booking initiative.
• Oversee testing of consumer-facing applications, including the AmaWaterways website, Cruise Check-In, booking engine, Cruise Finder, search capabilities, filters, pricing, and promotional offers.
• Collaborate closely with Engineering, Product, Data, Marketing, Content, and IT Operations teams to ensure seamless implementation and integration of technology solutions.
• Coordinate testing activities with technology partners and vendors, including UsableNet, Netomi, Dynamic Yield, Accelerize360, Builder.io, and other providers as applicable.
• Identify opportunities to improve testing processes, system quality, operational efficiency, and customer experience.
  
  

Competencies

Quality & Accountability - Delivers accurate, thoughtful work; applies feedback to improve outcomes; maintains high standards while balancing efficiency.

Analytical Thinking - Synthesizes complex information; leverages data, experience, and sound judgment to design practical and effective solutions.

Judgment & Problem Solving - Makes timely, well-reasoned decisions; evaluates risks and alternatives; engages the right stakeholders to drive informed outcomes.

Strategic Thinking - Anticipates trends and opportunities; adapts strategies as conditions change; balances near-term execution with long-term growth.

Collaboration & Teamwork - Partners effectively across teams and functions; values diverse viewpoints; build trust; advances shared goals and collective success.

Communication - Communicates clearly and thoughtfully; adapts messaging; listens actively; presents ideas with confidence and purpose.