Product Quality Lead, Panel

Welcome to the intersection of energy and home services. At NRG, we’re driven by our passion to create a smarter, cleaner and more connected future.

Vivint Smart Home, an NRG owned company, is a leading smart home company in the United States, dedicated to redefining the home experience with intelligent products and services. We find purpose in proactively protecting and keeping our customers connected to home, no matter where they are. Join the Smart Home team to create smarter, safer and more sustainable homes.

SUMMARY

The Manager, Vertical Quality Lead (VQL), serves as a key leader responsible for shaping and executing the overall quality strategy by directing a team of Principal Quality Engineers—each accountable for end-to-end quality within their respective product verticals. In addition to overseeing the entire Smart Hub Panel feature set, this role provides hands-on leadership and mentorship to QA teams, driving close collaboration across development, product, release, and program management. As the chief quality advocate for your vertical and the Principals across the Org, you will champion best practices, foster continuous improvement, and promote automation-first and shift-left testing approaches, ensuring robust risk mitigation in agile and DevOps-driven environments.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Vertical Quality Leadership:

• • Own and evolve the end-to-end quality strategy across Foundations & Smart Hub Panel, ensuring alignment with business goals and product requirements.
  • Serve as the single point of contact for quality within your vertical, representing Foundations & Smart Hub Panel in enterprise-level quality discussions, strategic planning, and go/no-go decisions.

Team Management & Coaching:

• • Lead, mentor, and grow QA engineers; foster technical excellence, ownership, and a continuous improvement mindset.
  • Manage QA resource planning, team utilization, and career development for direct reports.

Cross-Functional Advocacy:

• • Act as primary liaison between Development, Product/Program Management, Quality, and Release teams.
  • Drive cross-functional alignment on quality KPIs, release criteria, and test plans across all Smart Hub Panel features and foundational services.
  • Influence and enable product and engineering leaders to prioritize quality throughout planning and execution.

Strategic Quality Practices:

• • Define and implement robust QA processes, integrating manual and automated testing throughout the full SDLC.
  • Champion automation-first and shift-left testing approaches to optimize CI/CD pipelines and ensure product reliability.
  • Lead the creation of comprehensive test plans (including unit, functional, automation, and compliance testing such as 508).
  • Own the creation and continual maintenance of Quality Requirements Documents (QRDs) and verification processes.

Risk & Release Management:

• • Proactively identify, manage, and escalate risks impacting quality or release schedules.
  • Collaborate with Program and Release Management to define and monitor timelines, testing deliverables, and quality gates.
  • Drive active participation in backlog refinement, bug reviews, release readiness assessments, and production support as needed.

Quality Metrics & Data-Driven Insights:

• • Utilize tools like Jira, Confluence, and dashboards to track quality metrics, visibility, and trends for Foundations & Smart Hub Panel products.
  • Ensure rigorous documentation of test activities, outcomes, and decisions.
  • Promote best practices in reporting, documentation, and test planning.

Continuous Improvement & Technical Stewardship:

• • Foster a culture of transparency, ownership, and innovation in quality engineering practices.
  • Continuously enhance QA tools, frameworks, and processes to optimize coverage, efficiency, and reliability.
  • Maintain deep product and technical knowledge to anticipate and address current and future quality risks.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

Experience:

• • 8+ years in Quality Assurance, with 2+ years in a leadership/management role overseeing product/platform verticals or core app features.
  • Significant hands-on experience in developing and executing quality strategies for complex, cross-functional platforms, ideally including mobile, web, device, and foundational services.
  • Strong understanding of software test planning, automation, release management, and risk identification/mitigation.
  • Deep knowledge of agile methodologies, DevOps pipelines, and CI/CD best practices.
  • Demonstrated ability to lead high-performing QA teams and oversee resource planning.
  • Experience with Atlassian tools (Jira, Confluence, GitLab), test management tools, and requirements documentation.

Skills:

• • Exceptional communication and collaboration skills; adept at influencing technical and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Technical expertise in test frameworks, automation tools, QA methodologies, and bug management.
  • Proven problem-solving, analytical, and strategic thinking abilities.
  • Strong project management skills—able to manage schedules, balance priorities, and drive results across multiple teams.

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS/NICE TO HAVE

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering or equivalent experience.
• Industry certifications such as CSQA, ISTQB Advanced Level Test Manager, CSM, SAFe Agilist, Lean Six Sigma, or PMP/PMI-ACP.
• Passion for smart devices, IoT, cloud platforms, and the smart home ecosystem.
• Experience with API contract testing, cloud and performance/load testing.
• Familiarity with microservices architecture, networking, and mobile development IDEs (e.g., Xcode).

NRG Energy is committed to a drug and alcohol-free workplace. To the extent permitted by law and any applicable collective bargaining agreement, employees are subject to periodic random drug testing, and post-accident and reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol testing. EOE AA M/F/Vet/Disability. Level, Title and/or Salary may be adjusted based on the applicant's experience or skills.

Official description on file with Talent.

We support the use of AI tools to help you prepare for your interview (e.g., practicing responses, researching the role, or refining your resume). However, during interviews and assessments, we expect responses to reflect your own thinking, experience, and communication. Use of AI to generate or read answers in real time, complete assessments, or misrepresent your qualifications is not permitted and may impact your candidacy.