Principal QA Engineer

A Career at HARMAN

As a technology leader that is rapidly on the move, HARMAN is filled with people who are focused on making life better. Innovation, inclusivity and teamwork are a part of our DNA. When you add that to the challenges we take on and solve together, you’ll discover that at HARMAN you can grow, make a difference and be proud of the work you do every day.

About the Role

Join us as a Principal QA Engineer and lead the charge in ensuring the quality and reliability of a revolutionary music discovery experience. You will own our quality strategy from the ground up, creating the tools, processes, and systems that enable fast, confident product development. As the first QA hire, you'll have a rare opportunity to define and shape our approach to quality across mobile, backend, and data systems—all within a modern, high-performance architecture.

This role is ideal for a highly autonomous, technically deep, and strategically minded engineer who is passionate about building robust systems and scalable practices. Our product combines real-time audio, content delivery, ML-driven recommendations, and an immersive Flutter mobile experience. If you're excited by complex systems and the chance to impact the future of music technology, we want to hear from you.

What You Will Do:

· Lead QA Strategy Across the Stack Architect and implement scalable, maintainable testing strategies across mobile, backend, and data layers. Define test coverage, automation frameworks, and CI/CD integration points with long-term sustainability in mind.

· Own Execution With High Autonomy Scope, plan, and execute major QA initiatives independently. Anticipate risks and blockers, drive technical decisions, and ensure product quality with minimal oversight.

· Serve as QA Expert Be the go-to authority on quality engineering practices for the broader organization. Advise other teams on QA approaches, tools, and architecture, and represent QA in cross-functional technical discussions.

· Support Product Innovation & Launches Partner with engineering and product leaders to evaluate changes, support feature launches, and ensure quality at every step of the product lifecycle. Integrate emerging trends and keep our test systems aligned with modern best practices.

· Mentor and Grow Talent Act as a technical mentor and talent ambassador. Support junior engineers, help contextualize career development opportunities, and contribute to a high-performance, high-learning culture.

· Continuously Improve Tools & Processes Drive improvements to our automation infrastructure, test data management, and performance testing practices. Ensure quality metrics and standards are clearly defined and monitored across teams.

· Collaborate Cross-Functionally Work closely with Flutter developers, backend engineers, product managers, designers, and data scientists. Translate complex product and system behavior into clear, actionable quality strategies.

What You Need to Be Successful:

· Experience: 10+ years in Quality Assurance, with a strong focus on testing fully localized mobile applications that incorporate backend services, data pipelines, and recommendation systems.

· Technical Skills: Deep understanding of modern QA methodologies, best practices, and tools, with a specific focus on testing Flutter applications, including widget testing, integration testing, regression testing, end-to-end testing, and localization testing.

· Automation Systems: Proven ability to build and maintain robust automated test pipelines across mobile, backend, and data systems. Skilled in CI/CD integration (e.g., GitHub Actions, Jenkins, CircleCI).

· Architectural Knowledge: Strong understanding of testing strategies for distributed systems, asynchronous event flows, APIs, mobile performance, and real-time data integrity.

· Strategic Thinking: Ability to define long-term QA vision aligned with engineering and product goals and translate it into actionable plans.

· Decision-Making & Judgment: Makes fast, effective decisions in ambiguous environments. Routinely anticipates and mitigates quality risks before they escalate.

· Mentorship & Influence: Track record of mentoring team members, shaping team culture, and being recognized as a trusted technical voice across the organization.

· Trend Sensitivity: Comfortable identifying and integrating industry trends into quality workflows to ensure testing infrastructure stays ahead of the curve.

· Cross-Functional Collaboration: Excellent communication and interpersonal skills. Has successfully driven breakthrough ideas and quality improvements in multi-team environments.

Bonus Points if You Have:

· Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience)

· Passion for music and interest in shaping next-gen music products

· Experience with recommendation systems, social products, or real-time audio streaming

· Background testing audio software, DSP, or audio UX on mobile devices

· Experience supporting international launches or localization-heavy products

What Makes You Eligible:

· This is a 100% remote position

· Must be available during typical continental U.S. business hours

· Willingness to travel up to 5%, domestically or internationally

· Successful completion of a background investigation and drug screen as a condition of employment

#LI - Remote

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HARMAN is proud to be an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.