Director, QA Automations

Welcome to the intersection of energy and home services. At NRG, we're driven by our passion to create a smarter, cleaner and more connected future.

Vivint Smart Home, an NRG owned company, is a leading smart home company in the United States, dedicated to redefining the home experience with intelligent products and services. We find purpose in proactively protecting and keeping our customers connected to home, no matter where they are. Join the Smart Home team to create smarter, safer and more sustainable homes.

Summary

NRG is seeking a dynamic and results-oriented Director of Quality Assurance and Automation to lead our quality engineering efforts. This critical leadership role will be responsible for defining and executing our overall quality strategy, with a strong emphasis on building and scaling robust automation frameworks and ensuring the delivery of high-quality products and services. The Director will lead and mentor a team of QA and Automation Engineers, working closely with Engineering, Product, and other cross-functional teams to embed quality throughout the entire development lifecycle. The ideal candidate will be a strategic thinker with deep technical expertise in quality assurance and automation, exceptional leadership skills, and a passion for continuous improvement and delivering exceptional customer experience.

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategic Leadership: Develop and implement a comprehensive quality assurance and automation strategy aligned with the company's overall business objectives and product roadmap, with a strong emphasis on an "automation-first" approach.
• Team Leadership & Development: Build, mentor, and lead a high-performing team of QA Engineers and Automation Engineers, fostering a culture of excellence, collaboration, and continuous learning.
• Drive Automation and Testing Innovation: Champion and implement an "automation-first" testing strategy across all testing levels (unit, integration, end-to-end). Research, evaluate, and introduce innovative testing tools, frameworks, and methodologies to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
• Establish Testing Best Practices: Define and enforce best practices for various testing types, including API testing, performance testing, security testing, and exploratory testing, ensuring comprehensive quality coverage.
• Integrate Automation into Pipelines: Partner closely with Engineering and Data teams to seamlessly integrate automated testing within Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipelines and data pipelines, ensuring rapid feedback and high-quality deployments.
• Leverage Modern Testing Frameworks: Lead the adoption and effective utilization of modern automation frameworks such as Katalon, Cucumber, Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, Jest, JUnit, and TestNG.
• Quality Standards & Processes: Establish and enforce clear quality standards, processes, and best practices for test planning, execution, defect management, and reporting. Ensure consistency and efficiency across all QA activities.
• Shift-Left Quality: Champion and implement a "shift-left" testing approach, integrating quality early in the development lifecycle through requirements reviews, design feedback, and early testing activities.
• Metrics & Reporting: Define and track key quality metrics (e.g., defect density, test coverage, automation rates, release quality, data quality metrics) to provide insights into product and data quality and team effectiveness. Communicate quality status and risks to stakeholders.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner effectively with Engineering, Product Management, Program Management, and other teams to ensure quality is embedded throughout the entire software and data development lifecycle.
• Vendor Management (if applicable): Evaluate and manage relationships with external QA and automation vendors or consultants.
• Continuous Improvement: Drive a culture of continuous improvement within the QA organization, identifying opportunities for process optimization, tool adoption, and skill enhancement.
• Risk Management: Identify and assess potential quality risks, and develop mitigation strategies to ensure timely and high-quality releases and data integrity.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• 12+ years of progressive experience in Quality Assurance, with at least 5 years in a leadership role managing QA and Automation teams.
• Proven track record of developing and implementing successful quality assurance and automation strategies in IoT, smart home and energy.
• Deep technical expertise in test automation frameworks and tools (e.g., Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, Appium, JUnit, TestNG, etc.).
• Strong understanding of different testing methodologies (e.g., Agile, Waterfall) and their application.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and integrating automated testing into the development process.
• Proficiency in performance testing, security testing, and other non-functional testing methodologies is a plus.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills with a data-driven approach to quality assessment.
• Exceptional leadership, communication (both written and verbal), and interpersonal skills with the ability to influence and collaborate effectively across all levels of the organization.
• Experience with bug tracking and test management tools (e.g., Jira, TestRail, Xray, Azure DevOps).
• Strong understanding of software development principles and the software development lifecycle (SDLC).
• Experience with cloud-based technologies (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP) is a plus.
• Certifications in software testing or quality assurance (e.g., ISTQB).

NRG Energy is committed to a drug and alcohol-free workplace. To the extent permitted by law and any applicable collective bargaining agreement, employees are subject to periodic random drug testing, and post-accident and reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol testing. EOE AA M/F/Protected Veteran Status/Disability. Level, Title and/or Salary may be adjusted based on the applicant's experience or skills.

EEO is the Law Poster(The poster can be found athttp://www.eeoc.gov/employers/upload/poster_screen_reader_optimized.pdf)

Official description on file with Talent.