QA Chapter Lead - Digital Experience

About the role

Watu, a fintech company operating across Africa and Latin America, is hiring a QA Chapter Lead in Nairobi, Kenya. The role reports to the Head of Engineering and sits within the Digital Experience function, which covers four squads of 4-6 embedded QA engineers. It is not a QA manager role: there is no QA team to manage, and the person is the technical lead and standards-setter for the chapter of QA engineers.

The holder plays two parts at once: an embedded QA engineer in one squad, and the QA Chapter Lead for the function. As embedded engineer, you attend ceremonies, define acceptance criteria, write automated tests and own the Definition of Done for your squad. As Chapter Lead, you set QA standards, tooling and automation frameworks across all squads.

Key responsibilities

• Attend all squad ceremonies (planning, standup, review, retrospective) and define acceptance criteria with the Product Owner before each sprint.
• Write and maintain automated test suites (unit, integration, E2E) and own the Definition of Done quality gate.
• Define and maintain QA standards: test pyramid, automation tooling, naming conventions, coverage thresholds and CI gate configuration.
• Onboard new QA engineers, define the onboarding process and baseline expectations.
• Run the monthly QA Guild with the counterpart Chapter Lead from the other engineering function.
• Own the automation framework selection and evolution, and maintain documentation anyone can follow.
• Report to the Head of Engineering on coverage trends, flaky test rates, automation backlog and systemic quality issues.

Required profile

• 5+ years of software QA experience, including at least 2 years in a Lead QA role driving test strategy across more than one team.
• Experience defining and maintaining QA standards in an Agile squad environment.
• Experience in Java-based backend environments; ability to read Java code and write tests that reflect it.
• Strongly preferred: fintech, payments or digital financial services experience; mobile app testing experience (Android surface); experience building a QA chapter, guild or community of practice.

Required skills

• Strong automation engineering skills, with maintainable, reliable test suites running in CI.
• API testing at depth: REST, contract testing, integration test design.
• Preferred: performance and load testing, and familiarity with AI-assisted test generation tooling.

To apply, send your CV and a brief note on why you want the role to the Watu talent team. The process includes an initial conversation with the Head of Engineering, a technical interview and a final conversation with the wider leadership team.