QA Manager

Sago Mini is an award-winning publisher of preschool apps and toys worldwide. We are supported by a team of artists, designers, developers, product managers, thinkers, and doers devoted to play. With over 100 million downloads and three subscription services featuring 45+ apps, Sago Mini brings thoughtful design to life for kids and parents worldwide. Along with Toca Boca and Originator, we’re part of the Piknik family – a collection of top-rated apps for kids accessible from a single subscription.

About the Role

The Sago Mini team is looking for a manager with a strong technical background in mobile apps or games to lead our quality assurance (QA) department. In this role, you’ll concentrate on strategic planning and setting long-term goals that help us achieve our business objectives. You'll do this by establishing quality standards for a portfolio of products, supporting your team’s growth through mentorship, scaling our capabilities via internal growth and outside resources, and promoting a culture of quality across our studio.

If you’re passionate about helping others grow and want to work on products you can take pride in, you’ll love being part of Sago Mini. We can’t wait to hear from you!

It’s important to note that this role is hybrid, requiring you to work from our downtown Toronto studio at least two days a week and up to three days when needed.

You’ll thrive in this role if you…

• Are a strategic thinker who enjoys creating and refining processes that drive efficiency.
• Recognize the delicate balance between quality and business goals, and what is needed to meet the needs of both.
• Take pleasure in being a servant leader and find fulfillment in helping others excel rather than doing the work yourself.
• Thrive in a fast-paced environment and embrace a culture of innovation and iteration.
• Are comfortable managing manual testing efforts while also leading the charge to introduce practical uses of automation.
• Love simplifying complex workflows, removing unnecessary steps, and taking appropriate risks.
• Obsess over the little details and can spot when a single pixel is off. But you also know when to let something go because it isn't worth the effort.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Drive the overall vision for QA strategy, aligning goals with the company's long-term business objectives, and define quality standards across all our products.
• Be the main point of contact for QA, sharing strategic insights with leaders and representing QA in high-level planning and strategy meetings.
• Collaborate closely with cross-functional engineering, design, product, and operations leaders to establish and advocate for QA best practices.
• Develop an automation strategy that makes sense for a portfolio of Unity mobile games.
• Act as a QA team's servant leader and people manager, focusing on coaching, performance management, career development, recruitment, and onboarding.
• Find and hire external QA partners who can help us scale.
• Engage with QA leaders at our other Spin Master Digital Games studios, finding ways to improve QA across the group through knowledge sharing and collaboration.
• Own the QA budget, ensuring resources are allocated effectively to meet team and business needs.
• Staying close to the actual work by evaluating new technologies, unblocking teams on critical issues, developing training programs to elevate team capabilities, and stepping in to fill temporary gaps as needed.

Qualifications and Skills

• Strong leadership and strategic planning experience, with a history of driving QA initiatives that support business goals and help shape the company’s direction.
• Effective communicator at communicating QA challenges to engineering, design, product, release, and customer teams, helping everyone understand the issues at hand.
• Experience leading high-performing QA teams in an agile environment, with the ability to build strong relationships, ease team stress, and handle conflicts with empathy and tact.
• Comfortable running a hiring pipeline - outreach, interviewing, and onboarding.
• Skilled in sourcing, evaluating, and onboarding external QA vendors, ensuring they meet quality standards and seamlessly integrate with internal processes.
• Proven ability to manage budgets that support both team objectives and business goals.
• Deep understanding of QA methodologies, tools, and processes that apply to mobile, with the ability to assess when practices should be applied and when they shouldn’t.
• Extensive experience testing mobile apps with in-app purchases (IAPs) and liveops backend services.
• Have previously developed mobile app automation strategies for games from the ground up and know when it is worth automating something and when it is not.
• Master planner skilled in breaking down complex projects into manageable, solvable components, accurately prioritizing tasks, and delivering in a dynamic environment.
• Comfortable navigating common mobile app development tools, including Jira, Xcode/Android Studio, Apple / Google Play stores, adb, Git, and OS X Terminal.

About the Process

• Once you apply, you'll receive an email confirming that we've received your application. After we've had a chance to review your application (1-2 weeks), we'll reach out to let you know what the next steps are.
• If you are moving ahead, your first interview will be a 30 min interview where we'll learn more about you and answer any questions you have about the role.
• In your second interview, you meet with a cross-functional group of Sago Mini members for 1.5hrs. You'll discuss your experience and let us know what you're excited to tackle next in your career.
• Next, we will ask you to complete a short take-home assignment that will assess your QA skills.
• Your final interview will be a 1.5hr skills interview where we will explore your QA experience through questions/answers and a live exercise.

We welcome and encourage applications from people with disabilities. Accommodations are available upon request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.

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Based in Toronto, Sago Sago Toys of Spin Master Limited a leading global children’s entertainment company that creates, designs and manufactures a diversified portfolio of innovative toys, games, products and entertainment properties. We hire humble and collaborative people who care about doing great work. Sago Mini is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity at our company.