Principal Quality Engineer - remote job

LawnStarter is hiring a Principal Quality Engineer - a lead role, which means responsibility for a team or a direction. The role sits in IT and programming and is fully remote. The company places no restriction on where the candidate lives, so you can apply from anywhere.

The employer did not publish a figure; that is settled at interview. The advert sets no condition on working hours.

This vacancy passed an automated check: the list excludes any advert requiring a foreign work permit, visa sponsorship, a particular citizenship, or residence in a specific country.

Headquarters and URL

Headquarters: Mexico

Website: [lawnstarter.com](http://lawnstarter.com)

About LawnStarter

LawnStarter is a pioneering on-demand platform for lawn care and other home services, with over $150 million in annual bookings. Our goal is to become the comprehensive solution for all home maintenance needs beyond just lawn care.

Quality Assurance at LawnStarter

Our QA team is expanding, and we're committed to enhancing our test coverage. We already have established quality standards and a horizontally organized QA squad. However, what we lack is a dedicated leader to champion and evolve these standards. Each QA member is focused on their specific team, leaving no room to unify and advance our QA practices. This is the critical gap we aim to fill.

This is not a role to merely maintain the status quo. It's essential to ensure that our quality engineering framework continues to grow and improve as the organization expands. Our current infrastructure includes quality standards, CI/CD gates, and AI-driven tools, but we need someone to oversee and propel these initiatives forward.

The Role

You will serve as LawnStarter’s inaugural Principal Quality Engineer, reporting to the Head of Engineering. Our QA squad is already equipped with quality standards and functional AI tools. However, there is no dedicated owner to drive and unify these practices. Your role will be to take charge and lead the way.

This is not a traditional QA management role. You won't spend your days approving tickets or tracking bug counts. Instead, you will own the vision and strategy for our quality engineering efforts, collaborate with the QA team to improve existing practices, and continuously push the boundaries of what is possible.

As the QA squad grows, this role may involve managing QA engineers, so experience in hiring, coaching, and performance management is highly beneficial, although it is not the primary responsibility at this stage.

What Makes This Role Unique

* You will work closely with the QA team to shape and evolve the overall quality strategy, ensuring it is inclusive and reflective of the team’s day-to-day experiences. * You will receive direct support from the Head of Engineering, enabling you to continue developing AI-driven quality tools. * Success will be measured by the overall improvement in the quality of our engineering output under your leadership, not by the number of team members you manage.

Key Responsibilities

* Strategy and Vision: Develop and communicate a company-wide roadmap for quality engineering, along with a clear framework for accountability. * Test Strategy: Define and implement a comprehensive testing strategy across the entire stack, from unit and component testing to end-to-end and performance testing. * AI-Native Quality Tooling: Continue to enhance our AI-driven quality tools, including test generation and code review capabilities. * CI/CD and Test Infrastructure: Oversee the implementation and maintenance of CI/CD pipelines and test infrastructure, ensuring efficient and effective testing processes. * Production Quality Signals: Integrate monitoring tools into incident response and create actionable dashboards for teams to use. * Technical Mentorship: Provide technical mentorship to QA engineers across various squads, ensuring that the QA discipline thrives.

Problems to Solve

* Lack of Steering: There is a need for a leader who can drive and unify our quality practices, ensuring continuous improvement. * Unorganized QA Squad: Our QAs are organized horizontally but lack dedicated leadership to unify their efforts and improve overall performance. * Continuous R&D: We need to continuously innovate and adopt new tools and practices to stay ahead of the curve. * Quality as a Side Project: Currently, improving quality is often seen as a secondary task. We need to make it a core focus.

Success Metrics (Year 1)

* Clear Quality Vision: Every product team will have a clear understanding of what "good" means for their testing and the rationale behind it. * Improved Quality Gates: Flakiness, pipeline costs, and sync vs. async runs will show measurable improvement. * Innovative AI Tools: At least one new AI-driven capability will be successfully implemented. * Led QA Squad: The QAs across teams will be able to point to specific ways their work has improved due to your leadership.

Requirements

Who You Are

* AI-Proficient: You have experience using AI for generating tests, not just code completion. You are familiar with AI-driven tools like Claude Code and MCP-based workflows. * Strategic Thinker: You can design testing approaches that fit the current maturity level of the team, without imposing a one-size-fits-all solution. * Hands-On Expertise: You have experience building and maintaining test suites, not just reviewing them. * Effective Coach: You can coach engineers on testing practices and lead enablement sessions, while still personally contributing to the technical side.

This role requires a blend of strategic thinking, technical expertise, and the ability to lead a high-performing QA squad. If you are passionate about driving quality engineering and shaping the future of LawnStarter, we would love to hear from you.