Quality Assurance Lead

The Role

We re looking for a new Quality Assurance Lead to join our Technology team based in Loudwater, Buckinghamshire. The QA Lead is responsible for defining, implementing, and continuously improving the quality assurance and testing strategy across Dreams' technology estate.
The role will lead a team of testers and quality engineers, ensuring all technology solutions are delivered to the highest quality standards through effective testing, automation, governance, and continuous improvement.

The QA Lead will be accountable for quality assurance across:

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations (F&O)
• Dynamics 365 Store Commerce / Retail
• Ecommerce and Digital platforms
• Integration services and APIs
• Data and reporting solutions
• Business applications and enterprise systems

The role will also own the strategic relationship with Dreams' testing partner, Cell Software, ensuring external testing services align to business priorities, quality standards, delivery timelines, and value expectations.

Ideally in a retail environment, having a background in working effectively with all parts of the organisation to deliver solutions with outstanding quality.

Ready to skip the snooze button and get stuck in? Here s a taste of what you ll be doing day-to-day

• Managing regression testing for Microsoft's One Version updates.
• Coordination of business validation activities.
• Define and maintain Dreams' enterprise testing strategy and quality framework.
• Establish testing standards, methodologies, governance processes, and best practices.
• Drive a quality-first culture across Engineering and Product teams.
• Develop and monitor KPIs to measure quality performance and effectiveness.
• Provide regular reporting on testing progress, quality risks, defect trends, and release readiness.
• Act as the senior escalation point for testing and quality-related issues.
• Lead, coach, mentor and develop a team of QA professionals.
• Build capability across manual, automation, performance and specialist testing disciplines.
• Own test planning activities across projects, programmes, change initiatives and BAU enhancements.
• Define and deliver Dreams' test automation strategy.
• Identify opportunities to reduce manual testing effort through automation.
• Establish automated regression testing capabilities aligned to CI/CD pipelines.
• Drive adoption of modern test engineering practices and tools.
• Evaluate emerging technologies including AI-assisted testing capabilities.
• Manage the relationship with Cell Software and other testing suppliers.
• Own enterprise defect management processes.
• Monitor defect trends and root causes.
• Drive corrective and preventative actions.
• Ensure defects are appropriately prioritised and resolved.
• Report quality metrics to engineering leadership and key stakeholders.
• Support release planning and deployment governance.
• Ensure appropriate testing evidence is available for production releases.

The Person

This is the type of person we re dreaming of:

Essential

• 5-10+ years' experience in software testing, quality assurance or quality engineering, including leadership responsibilities.
• Proven experience leading and developing testing teams.
• Experience defining and implementing testing strategies and quality frameworks.
• Strong understanding of software development life cycles and Agile delivery methodologies.
• Experience managing third-party testing suppliers and partners.
• Excellent stakeholder management, communication and leadership skills.

Technical Experience

• Strong experience testing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations (F&O).
• Experience of Dynamics 365 Store Commerce, Retail/POS systems or similar retail technologies.
• Experience testing ecommerce, web and digital platforms.
• Strong knowledge of test automation tools, frameworks and best practices.
• Experience with Azure Dev Ops or similar test management platforms.
• Understanding of API, integration and data testing approaches.

Desirable

• Experience with in retail, ecommerce or omnichannel businesses.
• ISTQB certification or equivalent.
• Experience with performance, security and non-functional testing.
• Knowledge of AI-assisted testing tools and modern quality engineering practices.

Key Success Measures

• Improved software quality…