Full Description

Who We Are

• At VML, we are a beacon of innovation and growth in an ever-evolving world. Our heritage is built upon a century of combined expertise, where creativity meets technology, and diverse perspectives ignite inspiration. With the merger of VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson, we have forged a new path as a growth partner that is part creative agency, part consultancy, and part technology powerhouse.
• Our global family now encompasses over 30,000 employees across 150+ offices in 64 markets, each contributing to a culture that values connection, belonging, and the power of differences. Our expertise spans the entire customer journey, offering deep insights in communications, commerce, consultancy, CRM, CX, data, production, and technology. We deliver end-to-end solutions that result in revolutionary work.

The opportunity

• We are seeking a visionary and resilient Head of Quality Engineering to lead and scale our QA function in India. This is a pivotal leadership role within our Engineering and Technology team, requiring a unique blend of strategic foresight, commercial awareness, and hands-on technical expertise.
• The ideal candidate is not just a manager but a leader and coach—someone who can recruit and build a high-performing team from the ground up while maintaining involvement in projects and automation. You will be the driving force behind our continued AI Transformation in QA in the region and, ensure our technical capabilities are always one step ahead of business demand.

What you’ll be doing

• Leadership, Team Development & Future-Readiness

Build & Scale: Recruit top-tier QA talent to build the India team from the ground up. Manage high-volume, high-pressure hiring cycles while establishing the region as a Global Center of QA Automation Excellence.

Future-Proofing the Workforce: Collaborate closely with Sales and Business Development teams to understand the sales pipeline and emerging market trends. Translate these insights into training roadmaps to ensure the team is "project-ready" for next-generation work before it arrives.

Talent Development: Design and implement career progression frameworks. Foster a culture of continuous learning by coordinating training programs, onboarding graduates, and personally coaching team members.

Global Collaboration: Act as the primary liaison for the India region within our global community of QA leaders, ensuring alignment with global standards while addressing local operational needs.

Employee Wellbeing: Balance the drive for high performance with a deep commitment to team wellbeing, proactively managing burnout and ensuring a healthy, sustainable work-life balance for your staff.

AI Transformation & Technical Excellence

AI Leadership: Champion the adoption of AI-assisted testing tools and generative AI within the QA workflow. Lead transformation activities to automate test generation, self-healing scripts, and predictive quality analytics.

Automation Strategy: Lead the design and development of robust, scalable test automation frameworks using modern tools, with a specific focus on Playwright.

Hands-on Engineering: Review complex test scenarios and contribute to automation code or framework architecture. You will be expected to guide the team on technical implementation in Java, Python, or JavaScript.

Shift-Left & CI/CD: Support project teams in integrating quality gates within deployment pipelines and drive the adoption of "Shift-Left" testing principles.

Strategic Quality Management

Metrics & KPIs: Define and track quality metrics (DRE, Test Coverage, Cycle Time) to provide transparent reporting to executive stakeholders.

SDLC Integration: Collaborate closely with Engineering, Product, and DevOps leads to embed quality as a mindset throughout the development lifecycle.

Infrastructure & Data: Oversee test environment management, data management strategies, and ensure the infrastructure supports rigorous performance and security testing.

Client Delivery Assurance: Act as the senior escalation point for critical project quality issues. Build relationships with global account leads to ensure Indian based delivery teams are meeting client expectations and strictly adhering to any SLAs

Process & Operations

Agile Efficiency: Optimize testing processes to support rapid Agile/Scrum development cycles, reducing time-to-market without compromising quality.

Prioritization: Expertly handle multiple conflicting priorities and context switching between strategic planning, crisis management, and recruitment activities.

What we want from you

Extensive QA Leadership & Team Scaling: Proven extensive experience in Quality Assurance, leading and managing teams, with a track record of building and scaling QA teams from small to medium sizes (including graduate intake and senior hires).

Comprehensive Technical QA Expertise: Strong hands-on proficiency in test automation frameworks (Java, Python, JavaScript), deep understanding of Functional, API, Performance (JMeter, k6), and Security testing fundamentals.

Modern QA Tooling & CI/CD Mastery: Deep expertise in Playwright is highly desirable, along with proficiency in modern CI/CD tools (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI).

E-commerce/Retail Domain Expertise: Deep understanding of complex buying journeys within E-commerce/Retail domains, with experience using platforms like Shopify, Adobe Commerce, SFCC, or CommerceTools.

Strategic Business & Commercial Acumen: Ability to analyse business trends, sales pipelines, and commercial impact to forecast skill requirements, drive proactive team upskilling, and strategically prepare teams for future sales initiatives.

AI Transformation & Empowerment: Proven experience with AI transformation activities and a passion for empowering teams to effectively utilize AI tools in daily workflows.

Adaptable, Resilient & Results-Oriented: Comfortable with frequent context switching, adept at managing ambiguity in a fast-paced environment, and capable of handling demanding hiring targets and delivery deadlines.

Exceptional Communication & Stakeholder Management: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, capable of clearly explaining complex technical quality risks to non-technical stakeholders.

High Emotional Intelligence & Relationship Building: Possesses high emotional intelligence, fostering deep trust and strong relationships across cultural boundaries as an approachable, empathetic listener.

Vibrant Team & Tech Community Builder: Actively fosters a vibrant internal engineering culture (organizing Hackathons, Guilds, Lunch & Learns) and a strong sense of community within a distributed workforce through team bonding and celebrating successes.

If you know some of this even better

Cloud Native: Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes).

Emerging Tech: Demonstrated knowledge of AI/ML testing approaches and implementation of LLMs in testing.

Certifications: ISTQB Advanced Level or equivalent quality certifications.

Remote Management: Experience managing distributed or remote teams across different time zones.

What we can offer you

• Alongside the opportunity to work with some of the most exciting brands around the world, we’ll also prioritise your career development and help you grow your skills. We’ll empower you to make a difference, allow you to be yourself, and respect who you are.

Permanent only

• We offer a great benefits package including a discretionary bonus scheme, training opportunities, competitive pension, medical insurance, life assurance, social events, opportunities to buy and sell holidays, family friendly policies, discounts with hundreds of retailers and much more.

Our culture thrives on our core values, designed for impact-driven individuals: Heart, Brains and Courage. We lead with Heart, fostering empathy and trust where genuine connections and human-centric work flourish. We empower your Brains for innovation, valuing relentless curiosity and collaborative intelligence to solve complex challenges. And we champion Courage, inspiring you to speak up, embrace experimentation, and advocate for bold solutions that push our thinking to be better than yesterday. AT VML Enterprise Solutions Our Enterprise Solutions division houses strategic consultants, creative and technical architects and skilled developers and operators that together help some of the world’s leading organisations to deliver outstanding digital experiences across all major routes to market worldwide: marketplaces, online retailers, D2C, B2B and social platforms. With over 4,200 experts in 55 operational centres across 34 countries, our capabilities span the entire buying journey from customer acquisition, through engagement, to conversion and loyalty, driving multi-channel growth for world-leading brands. We work with some of the most exciting brands such as The Coca-Cola Company, EY, Bosch, Unilever, Ford, DFS, Mercedes-Benz, Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, Sainsbury’s, Selfridges, Shell and Tiffany & Co. We’ve built over 500 platforms for brands and retailers and generate in excess of $29bn annually for our clients and work with over 50 strategic partners including Adobe, SAP, Salesforce, HCL, Shopify, Sitecore, BigCommerce, commerce tools and Acquia. Our reputation is based on our people, and we believe we have some of the best in the business. As our business grows internationally, we’re looking for new people to join us on our journey to inspire and take a key role in shaping some of the best commerce solutions, services, and websites in the world. Working as a team, no problem is insurmountable; we share in our client’s successes and believe that anyone can show creative bravery no matter what their role is in the team. WPP (VML Enterprise Solutions) is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers. VML is a WPP Agency. For more information, please visit our website, and follow VML on our social channels via Instagram, LinkedIn, and X. When you click "Submit Application", this will send any information you add below to VML. Before you do this, we think it's a good idea to read through our Recruitment Privacy Policy. California residents should read our California Recruitment Privacy Notice. This explains what we do with your personal data when you apply for a role with us, and, how you can update the information you have provided us with or how to remove it.