Lead Software Engineer - QA

About Manna

At Manna, we’re changing how the world receives things — by taking delivery to the skies.

Our mission is simple but ambitious: to make high-speed suburban delivery affordable, green, and safe. We design and build our own aviation-grade drones that deliver food, coffee, groceries, and more — directly from local stores and vendors to people’s doors in just a few minutes.

We’re a team that Drive with Impact, are Safety Focused, and knows that the best ideas come from Team Players who show up as their Authentic Selves. We move fast, we are passionate about what we do, and we’re always pushing a growth mindset to be better — in everything we do.

If you want to build world-changing technology with real-world impact (and have a bit of fun while doing it), you’ll love it here.

Welcome to Manna — where we deliver the future.

Role Purpose

As Lead Software Engineer — QA, you will own the technical execution of automated software validation across the full Manna platform. You’ll define how quality is engineered into systems, lead development of test frameworks and tooling, and partner with software teams to raise the bar on reliability and release confidence.

This role is ideal for a senior engineer who thinks in systems, enjoys building tooling and infrastructure, and wants to influence engineering quality at an organisational level.

Key Responsibilities

Own the end-to-end automated testing and validation strategy for the entire software stack.

Architect scalable test frameworks covering unit, integration, system, and end-to-end validation.

Contribute to standards for test coverage, reliability, and signal quality across teams.

Build and evolve test harnesses that exercise aircraft, airspace, ordering, and factory systems together.

Ensure automated tests are reliable, maintainable, and provide fast, trustworthy feedback.

Own observability and reporting for test results and system health signals.

Drive adoption of best practices in testing, validation, and safe rollout strategies.

Mentor QA and software engineers on automation, testing strategy, and systems thinking.

Help shape an engineering culture where quality is owned by everyone.

Own incident learnings related to test gaps or validation failures.

Requirements

Skills & Education

8+ years experience building automated test frameworks or developer tooling in production environments.

Strong software engineering background (language-agnostic; Python, React, Java, or C++ experience all relevant).

Deep understanding of testing strategies across unit, integration, system, and end-to-end levels.

Experience validating distributed, real-time, or hardware-adjacent systems.

Proven ability to lead technical strategy and influence across multiple teams.

*This role is based in Dublin, Ireland.