Lead QA Engineer

Job Description

About Us
Circle is building the world’s leading all-in-one platform for online communities. We make it possible for creators, coaches, educators, and businesses to bring together their audience with engaging discussions, live streams, events, chat, courses, and payments — all in one place, all under their own brand.


We’re proud to be a fully remote company of around 170 (and growing!) team members from 30+ countries around the world. We seek exceptional individuals around the world, set them up to do the best work of their lives, and in turn, create a meaningful impact in their own lives. We don't track hours, but we do manage for high expectations very closely. We collaborate across time zones, are highly async, and like to document a lot.


Twice a year, we bring the whole company together in beautiful places around the world for our company offsites. So far, we’ve hosted offsites in Turkey, Portugal, Mexico, Thailand, Colombia, and Italy, with more to come!


About the role
We're looking for a Lead QA Engineer with a heavy mobile focus to join our Engineering team as we aim to make Circle the top choice for creator/brand-led communities.


This role be a player-coach, leading our QA team, while also being hands-on. In a hands-on capacity, it will focus mostly on our mobile automation test framework, but will be involved in all technical aspects of QA. In a management capacity, this role will manage the QA team of three, helping to organize and coordinate work, remove blockers, support in each individual team members growth, and more.


We have a preference for candidates in North/South American (AMER), and European (EMEA) time zones.

What you'll be doing

• Drive Circle’s product quality cycle, ensuring a seamless user experience.
• Ship often and ship with care.
• Design, develop, and implement robust test automation frameworks for Android and iOS platforms.
• Work autonomously on prioritizing and defining our QA roadmap.
• Improve the quality of our codebase and identify architectural deficiencies in your product area.
• Engage in considerate, but robust, PR reviews with Circle's engineers.
• Lead and mentor the QA team, playing a key role in hiring and managing performance.
• Collaborate closely with Circle's product and design leaders to deliver exceptional user experiences.
• Work closely with our engineers to create a world-class user experience and quality mindset.

What you'll need to be successful

• Strong alignment with our values. Find our values on our career page if you haven’t read up on them yet.
• You are proficient in English (spoken, written, and reading) at a CEFR Level C1 / ILR Level 5.
• 8+ years experience working as a QA Engineer on complex mobile and web applications.
• Strong proficiency in mobile QA test frameworks. We currently use Appium for our React Native applications, but are open to new solutions.
• Familiarity with both mobile and web test automation is necessary, but a high degree of proficiency in both is not a requirement. You should be highly proficient with mobile QA automation testing, but can be less experienced with web.
• 2+ years experience with managing and mentoring direct reports (engineers/QA). You are a strong technical role model.
• Ability to coordinate/project-manage work and keep the team organized combined with proactive communication and excellent judgment.
• A desire to work in an environment which values speed of iteration and individual autonomy, while also embracing personal accountability and the ability to collaborate effectively as part of a dynamic team.
• Motivation to understand the business and user needs, delivering impactful results.
• Comfortable in a fast-paced environment with a certain level of ambiguity.
• Adaptable with the ability to change direction quickly if necessary.
• Familiar with agile software development principles.
• Strong judgement and attention to detail when it comes to architectural, product, design, and process decisions. Your judgement should inspire a high level of trust within the team

Bonus points

• Experience with Elasticsearch / Sidekiq / Kafka / GraphQL
• Previous experience working with community platforms.
• Experience working on CRM/Marketing tools, with email deliverability, or in the creator space.
• Experience at a fast-growing start-up.

The cash compensation range shown is a starting point. In addition to equity, benefits and perks, your cash compensation is subject to an annual review and increase on a once per year basis.

The fun stuff
Fully remote: work from anywhere in the world!
Autonomy and trust to do your job: we care about outcomes over everything else.
Paid time away: all employees are given 35 days of PTO annually. We also offer a paid sabbatical after 5 years.
Generous U.S. benchmarked compensation and startup equity no matter where you are in the world.*
Awesome medical coverage with 100% coverage for you and your family, or medical reimbursement options where applicable!*
Parental leave for parents expanding their family, or just starting one.
Home office stipend to help you get up and running.
Learning & development stipend to help you level up your professional skills.
Annual bonus potential for roles that don't already receive variable income or commission.
Company retreats: Twice a year, the Circle team gets together for a fully paid company retreat in incredible places around the world! We’ve had past retreats in Colombia, Portugal, and Mexico, with more planned on the horizon.
Check out our Careers page for more.
*Your role, location and unique circumstance may affect this.


Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
As a fully-remote international company, diversity is baked into our DNA. Here’s how our CEO, Sid Yadav, frames our hiring mission: “let’s find talent in underserved and under-represented corners of the world, set them up to do the best work of their lives, and in turn, change their life.” To achieve this hiring mission, we offer competitive U.S. benchmarked compensation no matter where someone’s located in the world, and we proactively seek candidates who expand representation of backgrounds, cultures and lived experiences in our teams.


Equal Employment Opportunity
Circle is an equal opportunity employer and as such, we do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws.
If you require any accommodations during the recruitment process, please let us know and we will work with you to meet your needs.