QA Lead

Think Talent is working with, a sports technology start-up building a premium, mobile-first global platform for the sports industry.

They are creating a dedicated digital ecosystem connecting athletes, sporting professionals, fans and brands through content, community, engagement, creator tools, subscriptions, analytics and advertising.

The business is now moving from beta into a more structured product delivery phase and is building stronger internal quality, product and engineering capability to support launch, scale and long-term commercial growth.

This is a hands-on QA Lead / Quality Engineering Lead role for someone who wants to improve product quality, release confidence and testing discipline in a fast-moving digital product environment.

Reporting to the Chief Product Officer and working closely with Product, Design, Engineering and offshore delivery teams, you will help the business shift from reactive manual testing towards embedded quality engineering, stronger automation and shared ownership of quality across the team.

This is a foundational role. You will be close to the product and hands-on in the testing detail, while also building the QA standards, processes, automation roadmap and release practices that will scale as the business grows.

The role will suit someone who enjoys creating clarity, lifting quality standards and helping teams deliver better product outcomes earlier in the development lifecycle.

• Assess current QA maturity and define practical QA standards, processes and documentation.
• Build a scalable QA operating model across mobile, platform and AdTech workflows.
• Plan and execute functional, regression, exploratory, smoke and UAT testing.
• Test across iOS, Android, web, platform, API, analytics and advertising workflows.
• Define regression and smoke test coverage across critical user journeys.
• Introduce automation tools and frameworks to reduce long-term reliance on manual QA.
• Work with engineering to embed testing into CI/CD and development workflows.
• Manage defects through Jira, ensuring clear documentation, prioritisation and evidence.
• Support release readiness, release validation and post-release checks.
• Improve offshore engineering quality through clearer acceptance criteria and earlier risk identification.
• Validate analytics tracking, event accuracy, funnels, attribution and engagement metrics.
• Help create a stronger quality rhythm across Product, Design, Engineering and Commercial teams.

You are a practical, structured and hands-on quality professional who likes building capability, not just finding defects.

You know how to test thoroughly, document clearly and challenge quality risks constructively. You are comfortable working in an evolving environment where not everything is already defined, and you enjoy turning ambiguity into structure, standards and better delivery practices.

You will bring:

• 5+ years’ experience in QA, test engineering, software quality or product quality.
• Strong manual testing experience across functional, regression, exploratory, smoke and UAT testing.
• Experience testing mobile apps, digital platforms or consumer-facing products.
• iOS and Android testing experience.
• Strong Jira and defect management capability.
• Experience working with Product, Design and Engineering teams.
• Agile delivery experience.
• Experience working with offshore or distributed engineering teams.
• Exposure to automation frameworks or experience contributing to an automation roadmap.
• Strong communication skills and the confidence to improve quality without slowing momentum.

• Experience building QA standards, processes or automation capability in an early-stage environment.
• API, integration or data testing experience.
• Mobile release processes including TestFlight or app store release readiness.
• Experience across AdTech, MarTech, media platforms, marketplaces, creator platforms or subscription products.
• Experience with analytics and event tracking validation.
• Exposure to tools such as Cypress, Playwright, Selenium, Appium, Postman, Firebase, GA4, Mixpanel, Amplitude or BrowserStack.
• Start-up, scale-up or high-growth digital product experience.

• Detail-oriented and structured.
• Practical, hands-on and delivery-focused.
• Comfortable creating clarity in ambiguity.
• Confident challenging quality risks constructively.
• Collaborative across product, design, engineering and commercial teams.
• User-focused and quality-driven.
• Comfortable working with offshore engineering teams.
• Focused on scalable solutions, not long-term manual dependency.
• Energised by sport, technology, digital products and high-quality user experiences.

• Foundational role shaping QA, automation and release discipline.
• Opportunity to build a modern quality capability from an early stage.
• Exposure to mobile, platform, content, analytics and AdTech products.
• Direct access to senior product leadership.
• Hybrid working environment based in Balaclava, Melbourne.
• Opportunity to help build a category-defining sports technology platform.
• Meaningful ownership as the company moves from beta into launch and scale.

If you are a hands-on QA Lead,  who wants to play a defining role in improving quality across a growing global sports technology platform, we would welcome a confidential conversation.

Apply now or speak with Kylie Kneale at Think Talent for further details.