Ralph Lauren Manager , Quality Assurance and Automation

Company Description

Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE:RL) is a global leader in the design, marketing and distribution of premium lifestyle products in five categories: apparel, accessories, home, fragrances, and hospitality. For more than 50 years, Ralph Lauren's reputation and distinctive image have been consistently developed across an expanding number of products, brands and international markets. The Company's brand names, which include Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lauren Collection, Ralph Lauren Purple Label, Polo Ralph Lauren, Double RL, Lauren Ralph Lauren, Polo Ralph Lauren Children, Chaps, among others, constitute one of the world's most widely recognized families of consumer brands. At Ralph Lauren, we unite and inspire the communities within our company as well as those in which we serve by amplifying voices and perspectives to create a culture of belonging, ensuring inclusion, and fairness for all. We foster a culture of inclusion through: Talent, Education & Communication, Employee Groups and Celebration.

Position Overview

Who we are: Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE:RL) is a global leader in the design, marketing and distribution of premium lifestyle products in four categories: apparel, home, accessories and fragrances. For 50 years, Ralph Lauren's reputation and distinctive image have been consistently developed across an expanding number of products, brands and international markets. The Company's brand names, which include Ralph Lauren Purple Label, Ralph Lauren Collection, Double RL, Polo Ralph Lauren, Polo Ralph Lauren Children's, Ralph Lauren Home, Lauren Ralph Lauren, RLX, American Living, and Chaps constitute one of the world's most widely recognized families of consumer brands. Purpose & Scope: We are looking for an experienced Quality Engineering Manager to lead end-to-end quality assurance for our Clienteling application and Online-to-Offline (O2O) capabilities. This is a hands‑on leadership role based primarily in our Nutley, NJ lab, with direct oversight of the QA process across the full store technology stack. You will own test strategy, test execution, and QA team leadership for a suite of features that power how our store associates engage clients, from appointment management and clienteling outreach to in-store product discovery and omnichannel fulfillment. The right candidate brings deep expertise in retail and commerce application testing, a structured mindset for quality governance, and the ability to operate effectively in a fast‑paced store environment.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

Test Strategy & Planning

• Define and own the end-to-end QA strategy for the Clienteling application and O2O features, covering functionality, regression, performance, security, and usability.
• Develop comprehensive test plans aligned to product roadmap milestones, store rollout schedules, and business acceptance criteria.
• Identify and assess quality risks early in the development cycle, partnering with Product and Engineering to surface issues before they reach store environments.
• Establish clear test estimation processes and communicate coverage, progress, and risk to project stakeholders through structured reporting and metrics.

In‑Store & Lab‑Based Test Execution

• Lead end-to‑end testing within the Nutley lab environment, simulating real‑world store conditions including device‑based testing on associate‑facing hardware (tablets, POS terminals, handheld devices).
• Coordinate with QE resources across EMEA, APAC & India to manage the overall test execution across all markets.
• Oversee and execute functional testing for Clienteling features such as client profiles, outreach workflows, appointment scheduling, product recommendations, and Campaigns.
• Validate O2O capabilities including BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick Up In Store), ship‑from‑store, endless aisle, and clienteling‑triggered fulfillment flows.
• Conduct exploratory testing to uncover edge cases in store associate workflows and end‑client‑facing journeys.
• Coordinate occasional on‑site store visits to validate features in live retail environments ahead of broader rollouts.

QA Team Leadership

• Manage and mentor a team of QA engineers, assigning test coverage responsibilities, reviewing test results, and maintaining team velocity.
• Run structured QA ceremonies including test case review sessions, defect triage, and release sign‑off meetings.
• Partner with Project Management, Product, Business Stakeholders, and Development teams to communicate testing progress with clear metrics and well‑documented quality concerns.
• Build a quality‑first culture within the store technology team, embedding QA engagement from requirements through deployment.

Test Automation & Tooling

• Evaluate, implement, and maintain test automation frameworks suited to the Clienteling application's technology stack (web, mobile, and API layers).
• Implement and manage AI‑driven test frameworks that detect application UI/API changes and automatically update scripts to minimize flaky tests.
• Use Gen AI tools to analyze system req. and user stories to automatically generate comprehensive test scenarios including edge cases.
• Automate regression and smoke test suites for high‑frequency release cycles, reducing manual effort for repetitive test scenarios.
• Integrate automated test suites into CI/CD pipelines to support continuous quality validation across testing, pre‑production, and production environments.
• Drive tooling decisions that improve team efficiency without over‑engineering - pragmatic automation over theoretical completeness.

Quality Governance & Reporting

• Own the quality metrics framework: defect density, open defect aging, test coverage, pass/fail rates, and regression health.
• Provide clear and consistent reporting to project stakeholders, with transparency on blockers, risk areas, and release readiness posture.
• Manage performance, regression, security, and compliance testing responsibilities, coordinating with relevant platform and security teams as needed.
• Maintain detailed test documentation including test plans, test cases, defect reports, and post‑release quality summaries.

Environment & Release Management

• Collaborate with DevOps and Engineering to improve testing environment stability and fidelity in the Nutley lab setup.
• Support deployment approval workflows, ensuring test environments accurately reflect production configurations for Clienteling and O2O features.
• Coordinate environment readiness for release windows aligned to store operating calendars and business peaks.

Experience, Skills & Knowledge

• Multi‑stack engineer with 8+ years of demonstrated experience in a breadth of development technologies and test automation frameworks
• Proven experience testing retail, clienteling, POS, or commerce applications in a store or lab environment.
• Strong command of functional, regression, integration, performance, and exploratory testing techniques across web and mobile layers.
• Hands‑on experience with test automation frameworks such as Selenium, Playwright, or Appium.
• Proficiency in one or more scripting languages - Python, Java, or JavaScript - applied to test development and automation.
• Experience with API testing tools (Postman, REST Assured, SoapUI) in microservices or service‑oriented architectures.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or equivalent) and integrating automated test suites into deployment workflows.
• Experience validating AI‑powered application features - including recommendation engines, next‑best‑action logic, and personalization outputs - with the ability to assess behavioral correctness, not just functional pass/fail.
• Practical use of AI‑assisted tooling (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude, or equivalent) to accelerate test case authoring, synthetic test data generation, and defect pattern analysis.
• Experience managing defects and test cases in tools such as JIRA, Zephyr, TestRail, or equivalent.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to translate technical quality findings into clear, business‑facing reporting and release readiness assessments.
• This is a hands‑on role and requires the candidate to be in our Retail lab in Nutley, NJ 4 days a week

Preferred Experience

• Experience testing omnichannel or O2O commerce features: BOPIS, ship‑from‑store, order management, or clienteling platforms.
• Background in luxury retail or clienteling applications.
• Exposure to device-based testing on retail associate hardware (tablets, handheld scanners, POS systems).
• Familiarity with AI‑assisted tooling for test case generation, defect triage, or test data creation - as a productivity enhancer, not a core focus.
• Experience coordinating testing activities across vendor‑delivered and internally built features.
• Understanding of retail data structures: client profiles, product catalog, order management, and loyalty program data models.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree with 8+ or more years of work experience.
• A customer‑first, quality‑driven mindset that continuously challenges the status quo and drives action‑oriented outcomes. This is a hands‑on role and requires the candidate to be in our Retail lab in Nutley, NJ 4 days a week.