QA Lead - Data Platform (TL1)

Location: Bristol or London Level: TL1 Team: Quality Contract: Permanent Reporting To: Shira Tsinovich   Please note: This role requires an existing right to work in the UK. We can’t offer visa sponsorship, but we review sponsorship role by role, so keep an eye on our careers site for future opportunities.   About Kaluza   Kaluza is the Energy Intelligence Platform, turning energy complexity into seamless coordination. We help energy companies overcome today’s challenges while accelerating the shift to a clean, electrified future.   Our platform orchestrates millions of real-time decisions across homes, devices, markets and grids. By combining predictive algorithms with human-centred design, Kaluza makes clean energy dependable, affordable and adaptive to everyday life.   With teams across Europe, Asia and Australia, and a joint venture with Mitsubishi Corporation in Japan, we power leading companies including OVO, AGL and ENGIE, as well as innovators like Volvo and Volkswagen.   What you’ll do As the QA Lead across Data you will work closely with the Data Org, setting the testing approach and quality standards for its products and platforms. You will be the quality partner for data delivery teams, advising on testing and quality assurance across the software delivery lifecycle. You will work with Data Engineering, Product teams, and clients to make sure changes meet the defined quality bar before they reach client environments. This is an individual contributor role with no line management responsibilities. You will influence through expertise, relationships, and evidence. Define and own the test strategy and test plans for the Data Org, deciding what is tested and how, based on risk, criticality, and impact to the business and clients. Create and deliver test plans for complex data systems, covering functional, transformation, schema, and ETL/migration testing, plus end-to-end coverage across data and engineering teams. Set the quality gates that determine whether a change is fit to be promoted to client environments, and assess release readiness against milestones. Ensure defects are logged, triaged, prioritised, and tracked to resolution in accordance with Quality standards, and drive root-cause analysis on recurring or high-impact issues. Select and maintain the tools and frameworks used for testing, with automated checks running in CI/CD. Work with delivery teams, programme teams, and clients to support queries on test data and releases, and to maintain client confidence through clear, professional communication. Influence engineers, data analysts, and leadership to adopt a test-first mindset and own the quality of their products, and hold a firm line on quality standards. Report on test progress, quality trends, and risks to technical and non-technical stakeholders, and raise delivery risks and blockers early. Maintain documentation of quality standards, test coverage, and decisions, with transparency on known issues and risks. Act as the subject matter expert on data testing and data quality practices, including data quality checks (completeness, accuracy, consistency, uniqueness, validity, timeliness). What you’ll bring Proven QA and testing experience: Strong knowledge of QA strategies, processes and methodologies, including defining and executing test plans, test cases and test scripts for complex software applications. Agile, test-first delivery: Experience in cross-functional Agile teams with a test-first mindset, managing priorities, scope and risk to maximise testing impact across distributed engineering organisations. Data testing and SQL: Working knowledge of data testing methods (data quality checks, schema validation, transformation testing, ETL/migration testing), plus SQL proficiency for querying and profiling large datasets to diagnose quality issues. Quality metrics and reporting: Experience building quality metrics, dashboards and reporting for bot