Job title: QA Lead
Type: Full-time, Permanent or Contract
Location: UK or Romania | Flexible remote, hybrid, or office working
Location requirement: Must live within 30 miles of one of our offices or hub locations
Offices: Newcastle, Leeds, Bucharest
Hubs: Edinburgh, Manchester, London
The role
We’re looking for a Senior QA / Quality Engineering Lead to help shape how quality engineering operates inside a senior, AI-assisted engineering environment.
You’ll work alongside a small, highly technical engineering team where AI-assisted development and agentic workflows are already deeply embedded into product development.
This is not a traditional QA role focused purely on scripted testing or ticket execution.
You’ll Help
- Strengthen automation strategy and release confidence
- Embed quality earlier across product and engineering
- Review and evolve existing QA practices and processes
- Validate AI-generated code and tests
- Improve how requirements and acceptance criteria are defined
- Influence how reliable software gets delivered in a modern AI-assisted environment.
You’ll be working in an environment where engineers increasingly guide and review AI-generated output rather than writing every line of code manually. The role needs someone comfortable shaping how quality engineering operates within AI-assisted development.
What You’ll Get
This is an opportunity to shape quality engineering inside a modern AI-assisted engineering environment where quality is treated as an engineering and product challenge rather than a final testing phase.
You’ll Have Direct Influence Over
- Testing strategy and automation direction
- Release confidence and quality standards
- How QA integrates into product and engineering processes
- How quality evolves alongside AI-assisted development.
You’ll work closely with highly technical engineers solving complex product and engineering challenges in a fast-moving environment already embracing AI-assisted workflows in production.
The role is best suited to someone who enjoys challenging constructively, improving engineering quality pragmatically, and influencing how modern software development evolves.
What You’ll Bring
- Strong senior QA, SDET, or Quality Engineering experience within modern product engineering teams.
- Experience improving QA strategy, automation coverage, and release confidence.
- Strong understanding of automated testing, CI/CD, E2E frameworks, and modern software development.
- Experience with Playwright, Cypress, or similar automation tooling.
- Strong technical judgement around delivery risk, testing strategy, and where automation adds real value.
- Experience embedding QA earlier in the product and development lifecycle.
- Confidence working with highly technical, senior engineering teams.
- Strong communication skills with the ability to influence and challenge constructively
- Experience working with AI-assisted software delivery, agentic engineering workflows, or AI-generated code.
- A balance of technical credibility, strategic thinking, and hands-on execution.
- A pragmatic mindset focused on improving quality without introducing unnecessary process.
About Hedgehog Lab
We’re a digital product consultancy with 20 years of experience, helping organisations solve complex problems through technology, design, and delivery.
UK Benefits
- 28 days annual leave plus bank holidays.
- Flexible and hybrid working.
- Annual wellbeing budget.
- Free counselling.
- 3rd Party Health Insurance.
- L&D budget.
- 5 impact days per year.
Ready to apply?
Submit your application below.
Please note: we're unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role.
