QA Engineer (Manual + Automation, iOS)

About the role
We're looking for a Senior QA Engineer on a part-time basis for a long-term engagement with a US startup. The product is an iOS app that works together with a physical device and uses AI. The company is pre-launch.

You'll be the only QA on the project. That means full ownership of quality: you decide what gets tested and how, you build the process from the ground up, and you work in close contact with the startup's technical team.

This is not a role for executing someone else's test cases. If you need an established process to slot into, this isn't the position.

Schedule – please read carefully
The team is based in San Francisco, a 10-hour time difference. Because of that:
Working hours shift into the evening – roughly until 9-10 PM Kyiv time
Calls with the team two to three times per week at the start, one to two later on
Everything else is async, you plan your own day
Evening availability on agreed days is mandatory and not open for renegotiation after you start

If evening hours don't work for you, it's better not to spend time applying.

Requirements

Building processes from scratch
Experience joining a project with no QA in place and building everything yourself
Ability to set up a manual process from zero: critical flow map, test plan, regression suite, release checklist, bug workflow
Ability to design an automation process from zero: choose the stack, lay out the framework architecture, wire tests into CI
Ability to set testing priorities independently rather than waiting for tickets

Manual testing
Deep experience testing mobile applications, with a focus on iOS
Testing on physical devices, not only in the simulator
Working with TestFlight, builds, and multiple iOS versions
Verifying app permissions: microphone, Bluetooth, notifications, background behaviour

Automation
3+ years of commercial automation experience
Experience automating native mobile apps, iOS preferred
Proficiency with one of the following: Appium, WebdriverIO, XCUITest
Ability to read and audit someone else's test code, not just write from scratch
Experience with CI/CD and how tests live inside a pipeline

AI testing
Hands-on experience testing products with an LLM or ML underneath
Understanding of how to verify non-deterministic output, where there is no single correct answer to assert against
Experience with evaluation sets, scoring response quality, and catching regressions after a model or prompt change
Familiarity with common failure modes: hallucinations, unstable responses, false refusals

API and backend
Confident API testing with Postman or equivalent
Ability to read logs and localise an issue to the device, the app, or the backend
Working understanding of cloud services

Communication
English at Advanced (C1) level or above fluent spoken and written, no pauses to find words
Comfortable holding technical discussions directly with a CTO
Self-driven: nobody will hand you tasks every morning

Strong pluses
Experience testing products where an app works together with a physical device
Understanding of BLE: pairing, reconnection, behaviour on connection loss, data sync
Experience with OTA firmware updates delivered through an app
Working with audio as test data
Experience at early-stage startups where processes don't exist yet and have to be created
Crash and feedback triage during beta, with Sentry or Crashlytics
Understanding of privacy requirements: verifying data deletion and recording indicators

What you'll be doing
Regression testing ahead of weekly releases
Feature testing before go-live
Exploratory testing across device cloud app
Building the QA process from scratch and growing it over time
Auditing existing automated tests and gradually extending them
Bug and crash triage during beta

What we offer
Long-term engagement with the prospect of scaling up to full-time
Real influence on the quality of a product that hasn't launched yet
Flexible schedule within the evening availability window
Support from our team at every stage