Head of Quality Engineering (QA)

Job description

ABOUT SIFT Sift is the data infrastructure platform for hardware engineering teams. Sift turns high-frequency telemetry into engineering insights for mission-critical systems. Teams use Sift to build and operate rockets, satellites, autonomous vehicles, energy systems, defense platforms, and more. Founded by former SpaceX engineers who built the tools behind Dragon and Starlink, Sift is building the data infrastructure to herald the AI era for physical systems. THE ROLE Quality is a top priority for Sift, and we are building a formal QA discipline to match the standard our customers expect. This is our first dedicated quality leadership hire, and the person in this seat will own it end to end: the practices, the team, the tooling, and the accountability for what ships. You will define how Sift tests its products across web, desktop, and backend systems. You will build and lead a team that scales primarily through external QA vendors, supported over time by a small internal core. You will partner closely with product, design, and engineering to make quality a property of how we work rather than a step at the end. And you will be the single person who stakes their reputation on the quality of our releases. This is a builder's role with significant ambiguity. You will set strategy, stand up process from a near-blank slate, and decide where to apply manual testing, where to apply AI, and where to invest in automation. WHAT YOU WILL DO - Own Sift's overall quality strategy and serve as the accountable owner for release quality sign-off across all customer-facing products. - Build and lead the QA function, scaling to roughly 30 people. The majority will be outsourced testers managed through external vendors; internal headcount will start at zero and may grow to a small core of up to ten over time. - Select, onboard, and manage external QA vendor teams (for example, Keywords-style partners), holding them to clear quality bars, throughput expectations, and SLAs. - Establish formal test planning for every major feature and release, including regression suites, and enforce a QA pass on all user-facing products. - Organize testing into embedded squad testing and dedicated release testing, with test leads coordinating coverage across squads and releases. - Stand up structured customer bug intake, triage, and prioritization so that issues are caught, ranked, and resolved through a defined workflow rather than ad hoc. - Apply AI to accelerate the function: drafting test plans, test cases, and documentation, and building internal tooling such as admin utilities to create test accounts and set up test conditions. - Partner with engineering to expand automated testing over time, while continuing to invest in manual testing where human judgment matters most, especially for UX. - Define and track quality metrics and service-level objectives, and report on them to engineering leadership and, when needed, directly to customers. - Coach engineers on self-testing and help embed quality ownership across the product development lifecycle. WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR - At least 8 years of experience in QA, with a track record of senior quality leadership and the scope and judgment expected of a principal-level or director-level owner. - At least 3 years of experience managing people, including building and managing teams and developing test leads. - Direct experience managing external or outsourced QA vendor teams and getting strong outcomes from them. - Strong QA fundamentals: test planning, test case design, regression strategy, triage, and release management. - Hands-on quality experience across frontend, with depth in web and ideally desktop, as well as backend systems. - An AI-forward approach to QA, using modern tooling to accelerate test definition, documentation, and internal tool building, while knowing when manual testing is the right call. - Highly organized, autonomous, and comfortable building structure in an ambiguous, fast-moving environment. - Strong communication skills, with the ability to work with internal stakeholders and speak credibly with external customers. - Experience in B2B. Extensive B2C experience will also be considered. NICE TO HAVE - Experience in aerospace, defense, robotics, autonomous systems, or another mission-critical or safety-relevant domain. - Experience standing up a QA discipline from scratch at a growth-stage company. - Familiarity with observability, telemetry, or large-scale data platforms. LOCATION: Sift’s headquarters is in Marina Del Rey, CA (Next to LAX). We collaborate in person twice a week—on Mondays and Thursdays—and come together for a full week every two months. We are open to relocating candidates to LA or working from our San Francisco office for the right candidate. Salary range: $200,000 - $250,000 per year. Plus equity and benefits. ELIGIBILITY: U.S. Person Required: Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual such as an asylee or refugee in compliance with ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) / EAR (Export Administration Regulations) regulations.