Director, Quality Assurance

Who We Are

Catalis is a leading government Software as a Service (SaaS) and integrated payments provider, powering a wide range of government operations at the municipal, county, state, and federal levels. Our innovative solutions are designed to streamline processes, enhance efficiency, and improve the delivery of government services to the public. At Catalis, we are committed to leveraging technology to make government interactions simpler, faster, and more accessible.

The Opportunity

Catalis is seeking a strategic, execution-focused head of Quality Assurance to establish and lead a centralized, shared services QA organization. Today, QA operates independently within each of our five product verticals, resulting in fragmented processes, inconsistent tooling, and duplicated effort. This role exists to change that.

This leader will be responsible for consolidating these siloed QA teams into a unified shared services model based in India, serving all verticals through standardized processes, common tools, and a single quality vision. Approximately two-thirds of our current QA staff is based in India and one-third in the US; this leader will architect the organizational structure, operating model, and governance frameworks needed to bring these teams together under one cohesive organization.

This is a leadership position, serving as the senior quality assurance leader across Catalis, managing offshore QA Managers and their teams in India while partnering closely with US-based engineering, product, and executive stakeholders. The role requires periodic travel to India for in-person team syncs, organizational planning sessions, and relationship building with the offshore teams. Prior hands-on experience standing up a shared services QA organization is essential.

Beyond organizational transformation, this leader will leverage emerging technologies—particularly AI and intelligent automation—to fundamentally reimagine how QA delivers value. The expectation is not simply to automate existing manual processes, but to transform the role of QA itself: shifting quality left, embedding quality engineering into every phase of the SDLC, and building an automation-first culture that reduces cycle time and raises the quality bar across all products.

What you Will do

Shared Services Formation & QA Strategy

• Lead the transformation from five independent, vertical-specific QA teams into a centralized shared services QA organization based in India, defining the target operating model, team structure, roles, and service delivery framework. We will have limited QA staff onshore to address the CJIS requirements.
• Design and implement a shared services governance model including service-level agreements (SLAs) with each vertical, demand management processes, capacity planning, and resource allocation across verticals.
• Establish a unified quality vision, standards, policies, methodologies, and best practices to replace the fragmented approaches that exist today, ensuring consistent adoption across all teams and verticals.
• Own the QA roadmap, continuously evolving the shared services organization to align with business growth, product complexity, and engineering maturity.
• Champion a shift-left philosophy, driving a culture where quality is embedded early in the software development lifecycle—from requirements review and design through development and deployment.
• Establish QA governance frameworks including test policy documentation, process audits, and continuous improvement cycles.

Offshore Team Leadership & Organizational Development

• Directly manage and develop a team of offshore QA Managers in India and their respective QA Analyst teams, driving the transition from siloed vertical alignment to a shared services structure.
• Build high-performing teams through strong hiring practices, clear performance expectations, structured onboarding, and ongoing mentorship tailored to the India talent market.
• Establish effective communication rhythms and collaboration practices that bridge time zone, cultural, and organizational gaps between India-based QA teams and US/Canada-based engineering and product stakeholders.
• Create career development paths and skill-building programs that retain top talent and elevate the QA organization’s capabilities over time.
• Drive accountability and engagement across a fully distributed team through clear KPIs, regular 1:1s, and team-level reporting cadences.
• Manage the change management process inherent in consolidating independent teams, addressing concerns, building buy-in, and demonstrating the value of the shared services model to all stakeholders.

AI-Driven QA Transformation

• Develop and execute a vision for AI-augmented quality engineering that goes beyond tool adoption to fundamentally transform how the QA organization operates and delivers value.
• Identify and implement opportunities to leverage AI and machine learning for intelligent test generation, self-healing test scripts, predictive defect analysis, automated test case creation from requirements, and smart test prioritization.
• Lead the evaluation, adoption, and governance of AI-assisted testing tools and platforms, establishing standards and guardrails for responsible AI usage within QA workflows.
• Build an automation-first culture where manual testing is the exception, not the norm, using AI to accelerate the transition from manual to automated quality assurance.
• Stay current with advancements in AI-driven testing technologies and proactively bring innovation into the QA program, positioning Catalis at the forefront of modern quality engineering practices.
• Define ROI metrics for AI initiatives within QA to demonstrate business value and guide investment prioritization.

Test Automation & CI/CD Integration

• Architect and oversee the development of a standardized test automation framework for use across all verticals, leveraging modern tools such as Playwright or comparable frameworks.
• Define automation strategy including scope, coverage tiers (smoke, regression, integration), framework structure, and maintenance standards.
• Integrate automated test suites into CI/CD pipelines, ensuring automation is a core component of the delivery lifecycle rather than an afterthought.
• Establish automation coverage targets and ROI metrics to demonstrate business value and guide prioritization.
• Promote reusable component libraries and shared utilities to maximize consistency and reduce duplication across verticals—a key benefit of the shared services model.

Test Case Management & Standards

• Lead the enterprise-wide adoption of Aqua test case management platform.
• Define and enforce test case writing standards and best practices, including naming conventions, step structure, expected results documentation, traceability to requirements, and reusability.
• Establish test suite organization, coverage mapping, and lifecycle management protocols.
• Ensure all QA Managers and Analysts are trained and held to consistent usage standards within the platform.

Test Strategy & Execution Oversight

• Oversee the development and execution of test strategies, test plans, and test cases across all verticals through the shared services organization.
• Ensure comprehensive coverage across functional, regression, integration, performance, and UAT testing types.
• Define and own the performance testing strategy, including tooling selection (e.g., k6, Locust, JMeter, or equivalent), environment requirements, and execution standards; design and oversee load, stress, soak, and spike test scenarios.
• Establish performance baselines and SLA thresholds for all products, integrating performance testing into CI/CD pipelines for continuous validation.
• Define entry and exit criteria, testing SLAs, and release readiness standards.
• Align all QA activities with Scrum and DevOps methodologies, leveraging Jira for defect tracking, test progress management, and sprint integration.

Client & Stakeholder Engagement

• Serve as the senior QA representative in client-facing discussions, providing clarity on quality processes, test coverage, defect management, and release confidence.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, and Account Management teams to communicate quality risks, timelines, and mitigation strategies to external stakeholders.
• Present QA program status, shared services performance metrics, and roadmap updates to executive leadership and clients as needed.
• Act as the primary advocate for the shared services model, demonstrating its value to internal vertical leaders and external clients alike.

Accessibility Testing & WCAG Compliance

• Own the enterprise accessibility testing strategy, ensuring all software products meet WCAG 2.2 Level AA compliance standards as required by federal mandates governing government-facing software.
• Define and enforce accessibility testing standards, processes, and tooling (e.g., Axe, WAVE, Lighthouse, screen reader testing) across all verticals and QA teams.
• Integrate accessibility checks into the standard testing lifecycle and CI/CD pipelines, embedding accessibility into the shift-left approach.
• Ensure QA Managers and Analysts are trained on accessibility testing principles and techniques.
• Partner with Product and Development teams to embed accessibility requirements at the design and development stages.
• Oversee accessibility audits, remediation tracking, and compliance reporting for client deliverables and contract obligations.
• Own the creation and maintenance of Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs) for each product.

Metrics, Reporting & Continuous Improvement

• Define and own enterprise QA metrics including defect escape rate, test coverage, automation coverage percentage, test execution velocity, defect resolution SLAs, and shared services utilization and efficiency metrics.
• Provide regular reporting to senior leadership on program health, quality risks, shared services performance, and improvement initiatives.
• Drive a culture of continuous improvement, identifying inefficiencies, root causes of quality failures, and opportunities for process innovation.
• Promote knowledge sharing, documentation, and internal communities of practice across the centralized QA organization.