Software PA/QA Manager

About this job

We are currently looking for a Senior PA/QA Manager to join the team in Delft.

You will be joining a team operating at the intersection of space, aerospace, and high-tech systems engineering, contributing to technologies that underpin communication, navigation, and Earth observation infrastructure. The work sits close to real missions, where technical performance, reliability, and system integrity are non-negotiable.

The environment is multidisciplinary and project-driven, bringing together specialists in software, systems engineering, optics, electronics, and mechatronics. Projects are complex, often long-term, and executed in collaboration with international partners, suppliers, and institutional stakeholders. They typically involve strict requirements, fixed deliverables, and high expectations around quality, compliance, and traceability.

Within this context, you will play a central role in ensuring that software-intensive systems are developed and delivered in a controlled, verifiable, and reliable manner. You will be embedded in project teams while also acting as an independent authority on quality and assurance matters.

Main responsibilities

As Software Product Assurance / Quality Assurance Manager, you will oversee software quality across the full system lifecycle:

• Define, maintain, and review software quality and assurance plans aligned with project goals, contractual requirements, and applicable standards
• Ensure that structured software lifecycle processes (requirements, design, implementation, integration, verification, validation) are clearly defined, followed, and properly documented
• Assess the completeness and consistency of requirements, system architecture, verification strategies, and acceptance criteria
• Safeguard end-to-end traceability between requirements, design, implementation, and verification evidence
• Review verification and validation outcomes, including test coverage, results, and issue tracking, and advise on readiness for release or acceptance
• Oversee configuration, change, and release management processes for software and associated documentation
• Lead the handling of deviations and non-conformances, ensuring proper analysis, risk assessment, and resolution
• Evaluate suppliers and subcontractors on their software development and quality practices, including assessment of delivered artefacts
• Act as an independent authority within projects, providing critical input, challenging decisions where needed, and translating quality considerations for both technical and non-technical stakeholders

Requirements

• Degree (BSc/MSc) in software engineering, systems engineering, computer science, or a related technical field
• Significant experience in software quality assurance, product assurance, or systems assurance within complex, software-intensive environments
• Strong understanding of structured development lifecycles, including requirements management, verification, validation, and configuration control
• Solid grasp of quality principles, risk-based assurance, and lifecycle governance
• Experience reviewing and approving technical deliverables such as specifications, test reports, and release documentation
• Ability to operate as an independent authority while remaining an effective collaborator within multidisciplinary teams
• Strong communication skills, able to interface with engineers, project managers, suppliers, and clients
• Affinity with working in regulated or security-sensitive environments such as the defence sector
• Willingness and ability to undergo security screening or clearance procedures where required
• Fluent in English, written and spoken. Dutch is a pré.

About the company

At S[&]T we contribute to a safer life on earth by translating space data into valuable and actionable insights. We oversee data from instruments to application, and apply our expertise within our software frameworks, information products and consultancy.

Our society relies on space and scientific instruments for climate change monitoring, navigation, defence and national security, and other crucial services we all use in our daily lives. These instruments produce an enormous quantity of complex data, and our goal is to unlock its value.

We have more than 20 years of experience working on instrument calibration, the creation of data quality monitoring tools, the development of real-time data processing frameworks, and the development of application-specific algorithms. With this, we help organisations, governments and industries to strengthen their information position and thereby improve their decision making. We focus on the following domains: Space & Science, Defence & Security, Environment & Sustainability, and High-Tech Consulting.