// Open Role at Keywords Studios
Keywords Studios is constantly working with some of the world's largest Publishers and most popular AAA games. Here in Australia we have studios located in Adelaide, Brisbane and Melbourne and employ about two hundred of Australia's leading game professionals. Our studio brands operating under the Keywords Studios group are Tantalus Media (Vic, SA, Qld), Wicked Workshop and Liquid Development (Vic, SA, Qld).
Our preference is for a hybrid work structure.
We are looking for a visionary and strategic leader to drive our quality assurance division and cultivate a player-first culture across all operations. As the QA Manager, you will report directly to the CEO of Keywords Australia, taking full ownership of our QA strategy, department growth, and delivery standards.
You will oversee embedded and external QA teams, ensuring that our testing methodologies align with global best practices and meet the high standards our clients and the gaming community expect. Beyond daily operations, you will champion process innovation, manage high-level stakeholder relationships, and mentor QA leads to elevate the studio's overall quality capabilities.
Strategic Leadership & Execution: Define, implement, and evolve the studio-wide QA strategy. Partner with Production, Engineering, and Design leadership to integrate quality benchmarks into project roadmaps from pre-production through to global launch.
Executive Reporting & Risk Management: Serve as the primary authority on build health, risk assessment, and test coverage. Provide data-driven quality metrics and risk assessments directly to the CEO and external partners to facilitate high-level decision-making.
Team Leadership & Mentorship: Manage, mentor, and cultivate career growth for QA Leads and Senior Analysts. Foster a collaborative, inclusive environment that champions continuous learning and professional development.
Defect & Workflow Management: Oversee the studio’s defect lifecycle architecture within Jira. Establish standardized, clear bug-reporting workflows to optimize communication between local, remote, and external development teams.
Player Advocacy & Product Quality: Ensure the "player experience" remains core to all testing initiatives. Advocate for usability, accessibility, and gameplay balance by guiding teams to provide constructive, impactful feedback on game mechanics.
Automation & Innovation Strategy: Drive the adoption and integration of automation technologies to optimize human-led QA efforts, reducing time-to-market while improving test efficiency.
External & Vendor Coordination: Manage relationships, SLAs, and alignment with external testing vendors and global Keywords studios to ensure seamless scaling of QA capacity
Resource & Budget Planning: Oversee QA resource allocation, staffing requirements, and budgeting across multiple concurrent titles to maximize operational efficiency
Required Skills & Experience
Experience: 8+ years in video games QA, with at least 3+ years in a dedicated management or studio leadership role, having successfully shipped multiple titles across their full lifecycle.
Methodology: Mastery of software testing fundamentals, compliance testing, Agile methodologies, and advanced QA frameworks tailored to game development.
Communication & Stakeholder Management: Exceptional verbal and written communication skills. Proven track record of managing client relationships, collaborating with studio leadership, and presenting directly to C-level executives.
Operational Management: Strong capability in capacity planning, budget management, and prioritizing resources in a fast-paced, multi-project environment.
Technical Stack: Deep proficiency in the Atlassian Suite (Jira, Confluence), Slack, test management tools, and modern CI/CD pipelines.
Preferred Qualifications
Console & Compliance Expertise: Deep understanding of Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft technical and submission certification requirements (TRCs, XRIs, TCRs), including hardware and devkit compliance management.
Multi-Platform Knowledge: Experience managing QA pipelines across PC, Console, Mobile (sideloading/ live-ops), and cloud gaming platforms.
Process Optimization Tools: Advanced familiarity with Confluence, Google Drive, and database tools to build and maintain comprehensive studio-wide knowledge bases.
Culture Fit: A leadership mindset that prioritizes empathy, kind and respectful peer feedback, and a passion for elevating the QA profession within the Australian and global games industry
If you'd like to know more about Keywords Studios we recommend visiting our corporate site HERE
PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION POLICY
Keywords Studios is strongly committed to protecting your personal information. By sending your CV/Resume, you are agreeing to our terms and conditions and consent to your data being managed and retained in accordance with our data privacy and retention policy https://www.keywordsstudios.com/en/applicant-privacy-notice/
Role Information: EN
Studio: Keywords Studios
Location: Asia Pacific, Australia
Area of Work: Game Development
Service: Create
Employment Type: Full Time, Permanent
Working Pattern: Hybrid
PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION POLICY
Keywords Studios is strongly committed to protecting your personal information. By sending your CV/Resume, you are agreeing to our terms and conditions and consent to your data being managed and retained in accordance with our data privacy and retention policy https://www.keywordsstudios.com/en/applicant-privacy-notice/.