Senior Technical Lead, Software QA - AI and Platform Team

Accepting applications until 7/25/2025

The AI Software & Platform team delivers AI products and platform for all Cisco Secure products and portfolios so businesses around the world can defend against threats and safeguard the most vital aspects of their business with security resilience. Our passion lies in making our customers secure by simplifying security with zero compromise.

As a Quality Assurance Technical Leader for our AI Software & Platform team you will play a vital role in ensuring the quality and reliability of our Generative AI products. Your expertise in designing robust testing frameworks, establishing quality standards, and driving automation strategies across service boundaries will be essential for the success of our product. As a key leader of our team, you will be responsible for defining and implementing quality assurance strategies for our Generative AI products. Your role will involve understanding the operations of each AI service, designing comprehensive testing processes that validate their seamless integration, and ensuring the appropriate tools and metrics are in place. Your work will be instrumental in delivering a high-quality and dependable solution to our customers.

• Design and develop comprehensive test plans and strategies for complex, large-scale AI-driven features and systems.
• Address unique challenges in building effective test strategies for enterprise-grade AI platforms and software applications.
• Collaborate closely with multi-functional teams, including data scientists, machine learning engineers, and software developers, to achieve shared quality objectives.
• Design, implement, and continuously improve test automation frameworks for AI pipelines, APIs, and user interfaces to enhance QA team productivity and efficiency.
• Develop and maintain test automation tools for validating both AI models (e.g., model performance, accuracy, and robustness) and platform components (e.g., backend systems and UI).
• Define, develop, and manage complex test environments, including datasets and model versions, to support diverse AI testing scenarios.
• Enhance test automation frameworks to ensure they are developer-friendly, robust, and scalable, with support for detailed reporting, easy debugging, and seamless integration with CI/CD pipelines, test case management systems and bug tracking systems.
• Contribute to product decisions by providing insights into the quality of AI models, data integrity, and platform stability, influencing the development of cutting-edge AI solutions.
• Analyze complex issues, such as model performance degradation or system failures, and lead root cause analysis to improve reliability.
• Partner with engineering, product management, UX, documentation, DevOps, and customer engineering teams throughout the product lifecycle, from requirements capturing to release.
• Define and implement processes to capture customer feedback and build feedback loops to improve AI model quality, data accuracy, and platform user satisfaction.
• Set a strong example of quality-first practices and technical excellence in testing AI systems and platforms.
• Mentor and coach junior QA team members, emphasizing AI testing best practices, fostering accountability, and promoting continuous learning.
• Demonstrate effective communication skills in multi-functional interactions, ensuring clarity when discussing AI testing challenges and quality outcomes.

• A minimum of 10 years of experience in QA roles, with a focus on enterprise-scale systems or high-growth environments.
• Proficiency in Python programming, with expertise in additional languages considered an advantage.
• Familiarity with and ability to adapt to modern tools and frameworks such as Pytest, Playwright, Selenium or similar.
• Practical experience using backend and frontend testing frameworks, with a passion for improving test automation coverage and infrastructure.
• Strong diagnostic and debugging abilities, paired with experience in creating and maintaining automation pipelines and test utilities.
• Demonstrated success in collaborating with cross-functional teams to address issues, implement solutions, and ensure quality deliverables.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with a team-oriented approach and a commitment to ownership and accountability.
• Bachelor's or master's degree or equivalent experience in computer science or a related field is required.

• Bachelor's or master's degree or equivalent experience in computer science
• Prior experience working with generative AI technologies or AI/ML platforms
• Consistent track record in leading quality assurance efforts for distributed systems and cloud-based SaaS products.
• Experience designing and building advanced test frameworks from the ground up, prioritizing scalability and performance.
• Deep knowledge of test strategy development for complex systems, especially large-scale AI/ML or platform-based solutions.
• Knowledge of compliance standards.

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