Manager, QA Automation

Knit Well Group, a specialty retail operating company, comprises some of the most iconic brands in America – Ann Taylor, Chico's, Haven Well Within, Lane Bryant, LOFT, Soma, Talbots, White House Black Market. Individually, our brands are unique and strong. Together, we are powerful. Our common thread is our commitment to create exceptional products, provide memorable experiences, and achieve superior results.

Our associates are innovators who thrive through collaboration and are dedicated to excellence. At the heart of it all are the customers we serve. We are dedicated to creating fashion that not only looks good but also makes our customers feel good.

This position is responsible for leading a team of manual and automation quality engineering. Will work closely with the other members of the team and business owners to create, review, execute test plans and scenarios to ensure the quality of software releases. This role leads testing projects (big and small); provides support to the Digital Product Team sprint releases by applying best in industry quality engineering skills in various systems and applications, including financial programs.

This role participates in the product development process for ensuring software runs smoothly and meeting the business objective by enabling shift left testing using automation along with CI/CD, agile and scrum methodology and in completing test projects on time within budget.

• As the QA Manager, you will be responsible leading and managing Automation, and AI-enabled Quality Engineering teams, driving quality excellence, engineering productivity, and continuous improvement across Agile sprints and projects.
• Define and execute an AI-driven test automation strategy, leveraging Generative AI, intelligent automation, and modern testing frameworks to improve coverage, accelerate delivery, and reduce manual testing efforts.
• Lead the design, development, and maintenance of scalable, reusable, and AI-enabled automation frameworks for Web UI, Mobile Platform, API, backend, integration, and End-to-End testing across Retail and Digital Commerce platforms.
• Drive engineering best practices by integrating automated testing, AI-assisted test execution, and quality gates into CI/CD pipelines to enable faster, reliable releases.
• Drive adoption of tools such as Claude Code, Git Hub Copilot, and other AI platforms to automate repetitive QA activities, accelerate automation script development, and integrate AI capabilities into sprint and project life cycles.
• Lead the design, development, implementation, and adoption of AI-powered QA Agents for story readiness, test planning, test case generation, test execution, defect analysis, test data management, and automated reporting to improve QA efficiency.
• Partner with Product Owners, Developers, Business Analysts, Dev Ops, and Engineering teams to analyze requirements, improve story readiness, identify automation opportunities, and embed quality throughout the software development lifecycle.
• Evaluate emerging AI testing platforms, automation technologies, and agentic solutions; lead proof‑of‑concepts and scale successful implementations across QA teams.
• Define and monitor KPIs covering automation coverage, test execution efficiency, defect leakage, AI Agent adoption, manual effort reduction, sprint velocity, and measurable productivity gains from AI initiatives.
• Mentor and train manual and automation engineers in modern testing practices, AI‑assisted development, prompt engineering, and QA Agent utilization, enabling teams to transition toward AI‑enabled Quality Engineering.
• Establish and continuously improve enterprise QA processes, test strategies, methodologies, test plans, risk‑based…