QA Director — Kernel / Infrastructure & Automation Focus

(Remote in EU/Europe)

About Virtuozzo & the Opportunity

Virtuozzo builds cutting-edge virtualization, cloud, and storage platforms powering infrastructure providers globally. As we evolve, we need a QA leader who is not just a manager, but a hardcore engineer: someone who has done kernel-level testing, deep Unix internals, infrastructure automation, and can push quality left into development. This role is for someone who thrives on complexity and building better systems.

We want someone who will roll up their sleeves, design tests against failure modes few have thought of, influence engineering broadly (not through hierarchy), and shape the QA culture of a high-stakes product from the ground up.

What You’ll Do (Responsibilities)

• Define and drive the quality architecture: kernel / driver / module testing, low-level integration, performance, reliability etc.
• Design and implement an automated test infrastructure that mirrors real production and adversarial conditions.
• Be hands-on: lead key tests yourself (failure recovery, resource starvation, concurrency, kernel boundary conditions).
• Shift left: embed quality into development, forging alignment with kernel engineers, platform engineers, SRE teams, by influencing design and code paths before they ship.
• Advocate for metrics, observability, and test gating—introduce test coverage, reliability scoring, SLA alignment.
• Mentor engineers and SDETs, focusing less on people management and more on technical growth, rigorous thinking, and domain mastery.
• Partner heavily with R&D, architecture, product, and operations to ensure the product is robust, scalable, and resilient under real-world stress.

What You Bring (Must-Have Qualifications)

• Deep experience in kernel / OS / driver / infrastructure layers — you have hands-on debugging and test experience at that level.
• Strong background in Unix/Linux internals, concurrency, memory management, system calls, hardware interactions.
• Proven track record in automation at infrastructure scale (CI/CD, test harnesses, fault injection, chaos, resource contention).
• Experience with performance & scalability testing under realistic loads, regression test suites for low-level components.
• Solid technical credibility: you have written tests, profiled kernels, debugged low-level faults—not just managed people.
• Enough leadership experience to influence, mentor, and align cross-functional teams—without defaulting to a purely managerial practice.
• Strong cross-team influencer: able to communicate complex technical failure modes to architects, product, operations, and executives.
• Engineering mindset, data-driven decision-making, insistence on quality from first principles.
• Excellent communication skills in English (for distributed teams).
• (Bonus) Exposure to cloud / container / virtualization / hyperconverged systems.

What We Offer

• True autonomy and responsibility from day one: your architecture and strategy will matter.
• Flexible / remote work (within Europe) with strong engineering culture and minimal bureaucracy.
• Shareoptions participation—own part of what you help build.
• Competitive compensation aligned with the seniority and domain specialism.
• Exposure to deep technical problems, cutting-edge infrastructure, and mentorship from top engineers.
• Growth paths: technical leadership, architecture, or higher-level engineering direction