Lead AI Test Engineer

What is the opportunity. We’re seeking an experienced QA Lead who can balance hands‑on technical excellence with team leadership. This role combines active testing on AI and alternate data, automation, and mentoring a team of QA engineers. You’ll drive quality initiatives, establish testing strategies, and ensure your team delivers exceptional results while remaining engaged in critical testing activities.

What will you do

• AI agent testing QE working on multiple projects implementing AI‑based solutions
• Experience using GenAI tooling for test‑related activities
• Mentor a team of QA engineers, providing technical guidance and career development support
• Design, develop and oversee automated test frameworks using industry‑standard tools such as Behave, Python, Selenium, Cypress, Playwright or similar
• Allocate resources and prioritize testing efforts based on project needs and risk assessment
• Conduct hands‑on testing for critical features, complex scenarios and architectural decisions
• Establish and monitor quality metrics, providing regular reports to stakeholders
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives in testing processes and methodologies
• Facilitate collaboration between QA, development and product teams
• Lead root‑cause analysis for critical defects and production issues
• Review and approve test plans, test cases and automation scripts created by team members
• Manage test environments, test data strategies and testing infrastructure
• Champion quality culture and advocate for testing best practices across the organization
• Coordinate release testing efforts and provide go/no‑go recommendations
• In this role you will communicate and interact frequently with RBC partners and/or employees located across Canada and/or worldwide

What do you need to succeed

Must have

• 8 years of hands‑on software testing experience
• 3 years in a QA leadership or team lead role
• Deep understanding of testing methodologies, AI testing, SDLC and Agile practices
• Degree in Computer Science or related field; a master’s would be considered a plus
• Expert‑level programming skills in Python with 5 years of automation development experience
• Advanced experience with test automation frameworks and tools
• Proven experience leading and mentoring QA teams of 3 engineers
• Strong leadership and people management skills
• Experience in developing QA strategies and implementing process improvements
• Proficiency with version control (Git), CI/CD tools (GitHub Actions, Jenkins)
• Expertise in API testing and performance testing tools (Locust)
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills
• Ability to make technical decisions and provide architectural guidance
• Experience with resource planning, capacity management and project estimation