In an increasingly digital world, there is a desperate need to augment our human experience by getting us to interact with the real world around us and the people in it. At Headout, our mission is to be the easiest, fastest, and the most delightful way to head out to our next real-life experience. We do this by running a managed marketplace to the world’s most exceptional real-life experiences — from immersive tours to museums to live events and everything in between.
We’ve got scale, fast growth, and solid fundamentals
Headout has served tens of millions of guests from 196 countries (every single sovereign state on the planet) on one of our experiences across 100+ cities in 9 languages. Today, we have sales of 100s of millions of $s a year and are growing rapidly. Contrary to the norm, we deliver this scale and growth while being profitable. We've been unit profitable for 18 months + and have recently turned EBITDA profitable as well. We have raised $60M+ from top-tier investors and are building a durable company for the long term - because that's what our mission needs and deserves.
Now is the right time
While we have a fast-growing business, we are still very early in our journey with a large upside to capture and have a team that is small enough for you to have an indelible outsized impact on our journey. We are not too early, we are not too late.
Our culture
Every place has its own beat and we are no different. We are not the right place for everybody but we are the right place for a certain group of people. Read more about it here: https://bit.ly/HeadoutPlaybook
👩💻 The Role
As an Engineering Manager - QA at Headout, you will lead and scale our QA team to ensure our platform is robust, reliable, and seamless. You’ll work closely with engineering, product, and design teams to maintain high-quality standards while scaling our platform to millions of guests globally. This role blends hands-on technical expertise with leadership, giving you the autonomy to shape our QA function, implement cutting-edge automation frameworks, and drive innovation.
This is a hybrid role based in Bangalore.
🤩 What makes this role special?
- Own the QA Strategy from the Ground Up – You’ll define and implement the end-to-end quality strategy, ensuring that QA is not just a checkpoint but an enabler of fast, high-quality releases.
- Scale Impact Across Teams – Your work will directly influence how millions of guests experience Headout. You'll collaborate with engineering, product, and design teams to set quality standards that scale as we expand globally.
- Automate Everything – You’ll lead the push for a highly automated, zero-touch QA environment, integrating cutting-edge automation frameworks and CI/CD pipelines to make testing faster and more reliable.
- Lead a High-Performing Team – You’ll recruit, mentor, and lead a world-class QA team, fostering a culture of innovation, ownership, and continuous improvement.
- Be Part of a Fast-Paced, High-Growth Environment – At Headout, you’ll operate with startup agility while solving complex quality challenges at scale. No red tape, just speed, ownership, and impact.
💝 What skills & experience do you need?
- You lead with experience and clarity. You have 8+ years of experience in QA, including 2+ years leading a team, and you know how to hire, mentor, and scale a high-performing QA function.
- You automate, not just test. You have hands-on experience with test automation frameworks (e.g., Selenium, Appium, Playwright, Rest Assured) and CI/CD integration.
- You solve problems from first principles. You question assumptions, challenge the status quo, and build solutions that work at scale rather than following legacy processes.
- You’re comfortable at both 10,000 feet and 1 foot. You can strategize at a high level but also dive into test cases, debugging, and automation when needed.
- You’re an advocate for quality. You embed QA into the entire development lifecycle, ensuring testing is proactive, not reactive.
✨ Bonus (Nice-to-Haves)
- Experience working in a fast-scaling startup where speed and quality go hand in hand.
- Familiarity with cloud-based environments (AWS, Azure, GCP) and web technologies (RESTful APIs, microservices).
At Headout, we don’t just accept differences — we celebrate it, we support it, and we thrive on it for the benefit of our employees, our partners, and the community at large. Headout provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age or disability. During the interview process, if you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact the recruiter assigned to your application or email us at [email protected].
Privacy policy
Please note that once you apply for this job profile your personal data will be retained for a period of one (1) year. Headout shall process this data for recruitment purposes only. Once the relevant job profile is filled or once the time period of one (1) year from the date of the job application has passed, whichever is later, Headout shall either delete your data or inform you that it shall keep it in its database for future roles. In compliance with the relevant privacy laws, you have the right to request access to your personal data, to request that your personal data be rectified or erased, and to request that the processing of your personal data be restricted. If you have any concerns or questions about the way Headout handle your data, you can contact our Data Protection Officer for more information.
Top Skills
What We Do
Headout is an on-demand mobile marketplace that helps travelers discover & book the most incredible tours, activities, events & local experiences in town for the next 24 hours at exclusive discounted prices. All it takes is 3 taps and 60 seconds. We combine Uber-like convenience with HotelTonight-esque discounted pricing offering an unparalleled experience to 60% of more than 3 billion travelers that look for local experiences at the last minute.
We are the only company in the space that offers last minute deals with 15% cheaper pricing and 3x faster checkout.
iOS - http://bit.ly/tldshios
Android - http://bit.ly/tldshapp
Web - www.headout.com
Experiencing the world we live in is fundamental to our collective happiness. Headout’s mission is to unlock this happier world by connecting high-quality experiences with billions of people, giving them the opportunity to be entertained and inspired. The unique full-services brand works with small and medium experience providers to standardize a highly fragmented industry through consistent uniform upgrades to infrastructure and service levels. This gives Headout guests a comfortable and delightful experience and enhances occupancy levels, revenue and profitability for local partners.
Headout has grown 16x, is profitable and serves millions of transacting customers from 190+ countries every year. The company has offices in New York, Bangalore, Berlin, London, Dubai & Hong Kong.
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