QA leadership · Fintech · AI in testing

Quality is a business function. I lead it like one.

I am Victor Nwauwa, a quality assurance leader with 8+ years across fintech, social media, and telecoms. I build QA functions from the ground up, drive test automation and AI-assisted testing, and have led and mentored 20+ engineers, delivering quality on products used by millions. Based in Birmingham, working remotely.

View selected work Read the track record
Victor Nwauwa, QA Manager
Victor Nwauwa, QA Manager, Kora
8+
Years in quality
20+
QA engineers led & mentored
10+
Projects across industries
90%
Defect reduction, year one
About

I connect testing to business risk, regulatory exposure, and user trust, not just defect counts.

Over the past eight years I have built and led quality assurance across fintech, social media, and telecoms, often stepping in where no QA function existed and growing it into a high-performing team. I have led and mentored 20+ engineers and delivered quality on products serving millions of users.

My work spans manual testing, mobile testing, performance and load testing, API testing, and test automation, increasingly driven by AI-assisted workflows. Across roles I have cut application defects by up to 90%, sustained 95% release pass rates, and reduced post-deployment bugs to single digits.

Beyond hands-on testing, I set QA strategy, define release sign-off standards, and build quality culture that scales. I am also a professional speaker on QA leadership, AI in testing, and data governance.

Experience

Eight years, three companies, one throughline: building quality that holds up when the stakes are real.

Turn the dial. Select a role to spin it up to the marker and roll out the story.

Leading a team of 10+ engineers across manual and automation testing, I own quality for every release the business ships. I brought in AI-assisted workflows and a modern test-management practice that raised team efficiency by 50%, while holding an average performance score of 90% across coverage, triage, and post-deployment resolution.
  • Grew the QA team to 10+ engineers, cross-functional across manual and automated testing
  • Drove adoption of BrowserStack Test Management, moving from spreadsheets to an AI-driven tool and improving efficiency by 50%
  • Led QA for major releases across Cards, Identity Verification, and Mobile Money
  • Introduced AI tooling (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, ChatGPT, and Cursor) with clear human oversight
  • Sustained an average team performance score of 90% across coverage, triage, and defect resolution
CypressCypress CloudBrowserStack App LiveGitHub ActionsClaude CodeOpenAI CodexJira
See Kora case studies →
On a remote contract, I led QA across three product teams, Reddit Pro, Profiles, and the Posters Experience, for features used by millions on web, Android, and iOS. Disciplined triage and close work with automation engineers cut critical bugs by 95% before release and automated the bulk of the Reddit Pro suite.
  • Led QA across Reddit Pro, Profiles, and Posters Experience on web, Android, and iOS
  • Partnered with automation engineers to automate 90% of Reddit Pro features
  • Achieved a 95% reduction in critical bugs before release through disciplined triage
  • Reduced post-deployment bugs by up to 95% and resolution time by 50%
ZebrunnerZebrunner AIJiraWeb · Android · iOS
See Reddit case studies →
Promoted to lead a team of six, I built Kora's automation practice on Cypress, BrowserStack, and GitHub Actions. I steered QA for the Cards API launch on Checkout, hitting a 95% pass rate across four currencies, and drove testing for Virtual Bank Accounts and Identity Verification across three countries.
  • Led a team of six and built an automation sub-team on Cypress, BrowserStack, and GitHub Actions
  • Ensured the Cards API launch on Checkout with a 95% test pass rate across USD, GHS, NGN, and KES
  • Led QA for Virtual Bank Accounts and Identity Verification across Nigeria, South Africa, and Ghana
  • Reduced post-deployment bugs to under 10% for Cards
See Kora case studies →
I joined to build Kora's QA function from nothing, growing it from zero to four engineers in a single year. I standardised testing across Cards, Payouts, Settlements, and the merchant dashboard, and a JMeter load campaign on the Checkout API surfaced critical faults, lifting reliability by 30% and cutting defects by 90%.
  • Built the QA department from scratch, growing from zero to four engineers in one year
  • Embedded QA across Cards, Payouts, Virtual Bank Accounts, Settlements, and the merchant dashboard
  • Ran a JMeter load campaign on the Checkout API, increasing reliability by 30%
  • Achieved a 90% reduction in application defects
I led QA for national telecom identity systems, MTN SIM Registration and Glo Biosmart, across Android and web for millions of users. I built Selenium and Rest Assured automation, ran JMeter performance testing, and tightened the process to cut defects by 20% while lifting cross-functional productivity.
  • Led QA for MTN SIM Registration and Glo Biosmart across Android and web, serving millions
  • Built Selenium web automation and Rest Assured API suites
  • Ran JMeter performance testing, improving application performance by 15%
  • Streamlined the QA process, cutting defects by 20% and lifting productivity by 80%
SeleniumRest AssuredJMeterPostman
See Seamfix case studies →
Where my QA career began. I supported mobile and web testing for MTN SIM Registration and Glo Biosmart, sharpened the team's bug tracking in Jira to cut unresolved issues by 25%, and partnered with developers on test cases that made releases smoother.
  • Supported mobile and web testing for MTN SIM Registration and Glo Biosmart
  • Reduced unresolved issues by 25% through proactive bug tracking in Jira
  • Collaborated with developers on test cases, improving efficiency by 15%
Capabilities

What I bring to a quality function.

Testing & automation

  • Cypress, Selenium, Rest Assured
  • API testing with Postman
  • Functional, regression, exploratory
  • Load & performance testing (JMeter)
  • Web, Android, and iOS coverage
  • Web app development (side projects)

Tools & delivery

  • Cypress & Cypress Cloud
  • BrowserStack Test Management, Cloud & App Live
  • Zebrunner & Zebrunner AI
  • GitHub Actions CI/CD
  • Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Cursor
  • Agile: Scrum & Kanban

Leadership & strategy

  • Building QA functions from zero
  • Team leadership & mentorship
  • QA strategy, OKRs, release sign-off
  • Stakeholder communication
  • AI test strategy & human oversight
  • Governance, grounded in an MBA
Selected work

Ten case studies across payments, social, and telecom.

The stakes, what I did, and what changed, grouped by company.

Kora · 2021–Present

Payments infrastructure at scale

From zero QA to a nine-person function covering Cards, Virtual Bank Accounts, Identity Verification, and Mobile Money.

Read the case studies → Reddit · 2024–2025

Products used by millions

QA leadership across three teams with 90% automation coverage and a 95% cut in critical bugs.

Read the case studies → Seamfix · 2018–2021

National identity systems

QA for MTN SIM Registration and Glo Biosmart, where data integrity and compliance were non-negotiable.

Read the case studies →
Speaking

I speak from a practitioner standpoint. Evidence before assertion, always.

See speaking topics & book me
QA × AI

QA leadership in the age of AI

How quality leaders adopt AI without surrendering judgement. Drawn from leading AI test strategy in a live fintech environment.

Engineering

Human oversight in AI-assisted testing

The vulnerability patterns in AI-generated code, and the review standards that reliably catch them.

Fintech

Building quality culture in fintech

Lessons from building a QA function from scratch where every defect touches money and user trust.

Governance

Data privacy as an engineering responsibility

Why privacy and governance belong inside the engineering process, not bolted on afterwards.

Education

Where the business lens and the technical foundation come from.

Master of Business Administration

First Class · Distinction

Coventry University, United Kingdom

Completed with a First Class Distinction, my MBA reshaped how I think about quality. It grounded my leadership in strategy, governance, and financial decision-making, and gave me the language to tie testing outcomes to revenue, risk, and regulatory exposure. It is the reason I lead QA as a business function, not just a technical one.

StrategyGovernanceLeadershipFinance

BSc Computer Science

Second Class Upper

University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Graduating in the Second Class Upper division, my Computer Science degree built the technical foundation I still rely on: algorithms, data structures, software engineering, and systems thinking. It is what lets me read code, reason about how systems fail, and earn the trust of the engineers I lead.

AlgorithmsData StructuresSoftware EngineeringSystems Thinking
Contact

Let's talk quality.

Whether you are hiring QA leadership, booking a speaker, or building a quality function of your own, I would like to hear from you.

Email me Connect on LinkedIn