Manager, Quality Engineering & AI Validation

Manager, Quality Engineering & AI Validation

The Manager of Quality Engineering and AI Validation leads Accordion's centralized Quality Engineering and AI Validation function across software delivery pods. This impactful role will be critical in owning the quality operating model, release-readiness standards, test strategy, AI validation framework, and quality metrics used to support both conventional software and AI-enabled solutions. Above all, this leader will ensure quality is designed into delivery from the start, not inspected in at the end.

This position will ideally be based in one of our US offices and is a hybrid role with the flexibility to work remotely 2 days per week (also eligible for remote candidates).

What You'll Do:

• Quality Strategy & Governance
• Define the firm-wide quality strategy, release gates, and validation standards across development pods
• Establish a risk-based quality model for traditional software and AI-enabled workflows
• Define when pod-level validation is sufficient and when independent QA validation is required

• AI Validation Leadership
• Build and operationalize the QA approach for AI-led products, including benchmark datasets, scoring rubrics, regression comparisons, and grounded-output validation
• Establish testing expectations for instruction adherence, consistency, business correctness, control compliance, and hallucination risk
• Partner with Engineering and Product leaders on quality implications of prompt, model, workflow, and tooling changes

• Team Leadership
• Lead and develop quality engineers, AI quality analysts, and domain-oriented QA resources
• Improve the maturity of automation, evaluation routines, test evidence standards, and release discipline
• Create a scalable central model that supports pods without becoming a bottleneck

• Finance & Risk Alignment
• Partner with Finance and practice SMEs to ensure solutions are validated against real business use, materiality, and control expectations
• Ensure high-risk workflows receive the right level of domain review before production release

• Production Quality
• Define the framework for production quality monitoring, including escaped defects, output-quality degradation, reviewer overrides, and control failures
• Create visibility into quality trends, readiness, and recurring failure patterns for Engineering and leadership

You Have:

• 8+ years of QA, software testing, or quality engineering experience, including team leadership you are a builder of quality systems and operating models
• Deep fluency in both engineering quality and business impact
• Experience building test strategy, release-readiness processes, and automation programs in modern software environments
• Experience supporting AI-enabled applications, workflow automation, data products, or decision-support systems
• Strong understanding of functional, integration, regression, API, and data validation approaches
• Ability to translate business-critical finance workflows into quality controls and release criteria
• Comfortability asking tough questions about readiness, risk, and evidence
• Strong communication skills and credibility with Engineering, Product, and business stakeholders you are structured, pragmatic, and highly credible
• Consistent focus on trust, traceability, and scalable execution
• Bachelor's degree preferred

You Are:

• Excited to be part of a growing team, with a focus on driving future growth
• Passionate about delivering exceptional client service
• Knowledgeable about the relationship between Private Equity sponsors and their portfolio companies, particularly within the office of the CFO
• Willing to get your hands dirty in the details of a project while simultaneously seeing the whole picture
• Comfortable managing projects with multiple complex workstreams while also focused on your single workstream (you are managing and doing)
• A self-starter with a strong work ethic
• Full of entrepreneurial spirit and comfortable in a fluid, flat organization
• Able to effectively communicate complex issues and solutions, and raise issues to senior team members when necessary
• A team player, able to work with team members across all levels
• Someone who enjoys mentoring others and doing meaningful work
• A leader of others; you lead by example

The annual salary for this role ranges from: $165,000 to $205,000 + benefits + bonus.

Actual compensation packages are determined by evaluating a wide array of factors unique to each candidate, including but not limited to geographic location, skill set, years and depth of experience, education, certifications, cost of labor and internal equity.

Accordion is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, marital status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic information, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other status protected under federal, state, or local law.

Please note that as per Accordion policy, we do not accept unsolicited resumes from third-party recruiters unless such recruiters are engaged to provide candidates for a specified opening and in alignment with our inclusive diversity values. Any employment agency, person or entity that submits an unsolicited resume does so with the understanding that Accordion will have the right to hire that applicant at its discretion without any fee owed to the submitting employment agency, person or entity.