This is a player-coach role: you will work directly on testing and automation while also developing the processes, standards, and vendor relationships that raise the quality bar across the entire engineering organization.
Minimum Qualifications:- 7+ years of QA experience, with at least 2 years in a lead or senior QA role
- Hands-on experience with test automation frameworks (Playwright, Selenium, Cypress, or similar)
- Experience managing QA contractors, vendors, or offshore testing teams
- Experience developing or significantly improving QA processes and standards within an engineering organization
- Strong understanding of software development lifecycles and agile/CI-CD practices
- Experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions or similar)
Preferred Qualifications:- Experience with JS/TS testing frameworks and React component testing
- Familiarity with AI-assisted test generation tools and workflows
- Background in consumer-facing web or mobile products
- Experience building a QA practice from an early or low-maturity baseline
- Familiarity with performance testing and Core Web Vitals monitoring
- Experience with visual regression testing (Chromatic, Percy, or Applitools)
- Familiarity with accessibility testing standards (WCAG 2.2) and tooling
- Experience using observability and monitoring tools (Datadog, Sentry) as quality signals in production
As The Atlantic's QA Manager, you will:- Own the engineering quality practice: define testing standards, processes, and tooling for the organization
- Manage the day-to-day relationship with our offshore QA partner and oversee the work of a team of five QA contractors
- Work hands-on as a practitioner - designing test strategies, writing automated tests, and contributing directly to quality
- Partner with engineering teams across Reader Experience, Membership & Growth, Interactive, and Mobile to embed quality practices into their workflows
- Define and uphold quality standards for AI-powered features, including test approaches for LLM-driven experiences and non-deterministic outputs
- Integrate quality gates into CI/CD pipelines to enable fast, confident deployments
- Identify testing gaps and systemic quality risks across the product and surface them to engineering leadership
- Evaluate and recommend QA tooling and automation frameworks as the organization's needs evolve
- Track and report on quality metrics and trends to the VP of Engineering
- Help build a culture of shared ownership around quality - not just within dedicated QA, but across how teams work
- Participate in on-call rotation (outside of standard business hours) to monitor, troubleshoot, and resolve production incidents, ensuring system reliability and uptime.
- The role will at times include night, early-morning, and weekend work.
As The Atlantic's QA Manager, you are:- A practitioner and a strategist: You're equally comfortable writing test automation and developing org-wide QA strategy. You don't choose between doing the work and improving the system.
- AI-fluent: You understand how AI tools are reshaping Quality Engineering both as productivity multipliers in your own workflow and as new categories of features requiring thoughtful testing approaches.
- Process-minded: You know what a mature QA practice looks like and how to build toward it incrementally in an organization starting from a low baseline.
- An effective vendor partner: You've managed offshore or contractor QA relationships and know how to set expectations, maintain accountability, and get consistent quality output across time zones.
- Technically capable: You have hands-on experience with automation frameworks and can contribute directly to the codebase. You don't need to be a full-stack engineer, but you can hold your own in a technical conversation.
- A collaborator: You embed naturally into engineering teams, earn their trust, and help them take ownership of quality rather than treating QA as someone else's job.
- A strong communicator: You can articulate quality risk, test coverage gaps, and process recommendations clearly to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
- Adaptable: You're comfortable working across different teams, tech stacks, and product areas with varying levels of QA maturity.
- An interest in the pursuit of truth: You believe in what The Atlantic does and want the products we ship to reflect that.
Salary minimum: $145,000; Salary maximum: $165,000This role is based in Washington, D.C. 
