Quality Engineering Manager

Quality Engineering Manager – Airline Operations Platform

JOB DESCRIPTION

ROLE OVERVIEW

TEAM

At easyJet, we are transforming Airline Operations through modern product-led technology, operational excellence, automation, data and AI-enabled capabilities.

The Airline Operations Platform is the single point of contact for the applications and source data availability assigned to the Platform, enabling four operational missions across four business critical applications. It owns the crew, flight planning, network control and engineering systems that keep the network flying, AIMS, TOPS, LIDO and AMOS.

Quality in this environment is not about finding defects late. It is about knowing, before a change reaches the operation, whether it is safe to land and being the person prepared to say when it is not.

As Quality Engineering Manager, you will own the quality approach for change affecting these applications and the interfaces around them\: what needs testing and why, what risk each change carries, what evidence is required before release, and whether that evidence is good enough.

Much of the estate is vendor-managed, so you will often be assuring change you did not build and cannot see inside. That makes risk-based judgement, integration and end-to-end testing, and rigour about vendor-supplied test evidence more important than depth in any single codebase.

The environment is demanding, with limited change windows, a live 24x7 operation, seasonal constraints around the peak, and consequences that reach crew, flight planning, network control and engineering. Getting quality right here protects the operation directly.

This role reports to the Platform Lead within the Proactive Application Management capability and works closely with the Principal QE, Technical Specialists who hold deep application expertise, Integration Specialists, Platform Engineers, the Workflow Automation Specialist, Delivery Managers, Service Assurance Specialists, the Service Support team, vendors and mission engineering teams.

JOB PURPOSE

• Own the quality approach for change affecting the critical applications, their integrations and the automations around them.

• Assess the risk each change carries and target testing effort at where failure would actually hurt the operation.

• Design, build and run functional, integration, end-to-end, regression and non-functional testing across the estate.

• Automate regression and interface testing so it can be run often, cheaply and reliably rather than heroically before each release.

• Own the quality evidence behind release decisions and be prepared to say a change is not ready.

• Assure vendor-supplied change and test evidence, holding suppliers to a standard rather than accepting a green report at face value.

• Own test environments, test data and test coverage for the applications in scope, within data protection constraints.

• Support upgrade, patch and DR testing in an environment with limited change windows.

• Shift quality left\: get quality into design and delivery conversations rather than inspecting at the end.

• Build quality practice and literacy across the Platform, coaching engineers and specialists.

• Work within Product and Platform ways of working, treating the missions and operational users as customers of the Platform.

JOB ACCOUNTABILITIES

Quality Strategy & Risk-Based Approach

• Own the test approach for changes affecting the applications in scope\: what will be tested, at what level, with what coverage and why.

• Assess the risk each change carries — operational consequence, blast radius, reversibility, dependency and vendor involvement — and target effort accordingly rather than testing everything equally.

• Define entry and exit criteria, definition of ready and definition of done for change, in line with standards set by the Principal Quality Engineer.

• Contribute the quality view to impact assessment alongside the Technical Specialists, so the risk position and the test position are consistent.

• Identify where testing is not possible or not meaningful and say so plainly rather than producing evidence that looks reassuring but proves nothing.

Test Design, Execution & Automation

• Design and execute functional, integration, end-to-end and regression testing across the applications, interfaces and data flows in scope.

• Build and maintain automated regression and interface test suites, so confidence can be re-established quickly after any change.

• Automate at the level that gives the best return in this estate\: API, contract, integration and data validation testing rather than fragile interface-level scripts over vendor screens.

• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines with the Platform Engineers and Integration Specialists, so tests run as part of delivery rather than as a separate phase.

• Support non-functional testing — performance, load, failover and recovery — particularly where a vendor service level is being relied upon under operational load.

• Support disaster recovery and resilience testing with the Service Assurance Specialists, including verification that recovery actually restored what it should have.

• Test the automations and self-service journeys the Platform builds, including their failure paths.

Vendor Change & Evidence Assurance

• Assure vendor-supplied releases, patches and fixes\: understand what changed, what it affects and what the vendor has tested.

• Hold vendors to a standard of test evidence and challenge a green report that does not stand up to scrutiny.

• Design and run the acceptance testing that verifies vendor change in easyJet's own configuration, data and integration context.

• Track defect quality from vendors — recurrence, incomplete fixes, regression introduced — and feed the evidence to the Supplier Management Specialist.

• Support vendor assessments and product evaluations, such as the AIMS RFI, on testability, API maturity and behaviour under load.

Release Readiness & Quality Gates

• Own the quality evidence behind each release decision, presented clearly enough for others to make an informed call.

• Hold the quality gate under delivery pressure and be willing to state that a change is not ready to reach the operation.

• Work with the Delivery Managers, Service Assurance Specialists and Service Support Lead so readiness covers supportability, monitoring, documentation and cover as well as test pass rates.

• Support upgrade and patch cycles for the critical applications, including regression around the seasonal peak and other constrained windows.

• Support post-release verification and confirm in production that the change did what it was supposed to.

• Contribute to post-incident review where a defect or gap in testing was a contributing factor and close the gap rather than noting it.

Test Environments & Test Data

• Own test coverage, environment readiness and test data provision for the applications in scope, working with vendors and Platform Engineers.

• Manage the realities of a vendor-managed estate\: limited environments, shared instances, refresh cycles and configuration drift.

• Ensure test data is realistic enough to be meaningful and handled in line with data protection requirements, particularly for crew and personal data.

• Improve environment and data availability over time, so testing is not the constraint on delivery pace.

• Maintain traceability between requirements, tests, defects and releases, so the quality position can be evidenced rather than asserted.

Quality Practice, Coaching & Ways of Working

• Shift quality left\: contribute to design, refinement and sizing so testability and risk are considered before build starts.

• Build quality literacy across the Platform, coaching engineers and specialists in test practice, automation and risk thinking.

• Contribute to quality standards, patterns, tooling and reusable test assets in line with direction from the Principal Quality Engineer.

• Review mission-built change that depends on Platform applications or interfaces, so quality standards are met before go-live.

• Document the test approach, coverage and known gaps so they can be understood and maintained by others.

• Work within Product and Platform ways of working, contributing to sprint commitments and backlog refinement.

• Report quality metrics that mean something\: escaped defects, regression coverage, automation coverage, defect recurrence and time to feedback.

COMPETENCIES

Innovation & Change

Improves how quality is achieved rather than adding process. Looks for automation, earlier feedback and better evidence, and challenges testing that exists out of habit.

Business Performance

Understands the commercial realities of easyJet in terms of operating a high-volume, low-cost airline. Targets quality effort at operational risk rather than spreading it evenly.

Ownership & Delivery

Owns the quality position and stands behind it. Comfortable being the person who says a change is not ready, and equally comfortable saying the risk is acceptable and it should proceed.

Leadership & People Development

Builds quality capability in others through coaching and example, so quality is owned by the team rather than delegated to a tester.

Supplier & Partner Management

Holds vendors to account on test evidence and defect quality with specifics rather than assertions, and builds working relationships that survive doing so.

Building Relationships

Builds trusted relationships with engineers, specialists, delivery managers and operational users. Raises risk in a way that gets it addressed rather than resented.

Operational Excellence

Understands what it means to assure change in a live 24x7 operation. Balances pace with confidence, works within constrained windows, and never underestimates the consequence of a defect reaching the network.