We are looking for an Associate Manager, Quality Assurance (QA) to lead the testing lifecycle for the Taco Bell Voice AI program. This role will ensure end-to-end quality and performance of voice-based agents operating in real-time drive-thru environments. You will work closely with AI Engineers, MLEs, DevOps, and TPMs to define test plans, execute regression testing, and validate new features across agent behaviors, system integrations, and user experience.  Key Responsibilities: Test Planning &amp; Execution <ul> <li>Develop and maintain QA test plans, use cases, and test scripts for voice and AI agents</li> <li>Conduct manual and automated testing across staging and production environments</li> <li>Execute smoke tests, regression tests, and edge-case evaluations for new features</li> </ul>Voice Agent Quality Validation <ul> <li>Test agent responsiveness, intent recognition, and fallback handling</li> <li>Identify, report, and track issues related to speech-to-text, LLM responses, and system integration</li> <li>Collaborate with AI Engineers and MLEs to reproduce, triage, and resolve bugs</li> </ul>QA Process &amp; Tools <ul> <li>Contribute to automation strategy and tooling improvements (e.g., Playwright, pytest, custom LLM test harnesses)</li> <li>Maintain structured QA documentation, version history, and release gating protocols</li> <li>Support QA data collection and tagging for agent tuning and evaluation</li> </ul>Required Qualifications: <ul> <li>3+ years in Quality Assurance roles, preferably testing real-time or AI-based systems</li> <li>Experience with test planning, bug tracking, and QA documentation tools (e.g., TestRail, JIRA, Confluence)</li> <li>Strong attention to detail and understanding of UX-centric testing principles</li> <li>Basic scripting skills (e.g., Python) for data-driven testing or automation</li> </ul>Preferred Qualifications: <ul> <li>Experience testing voice-based interfaces, ASR/NLU systems, or LLM-based agents</li> <li>Familiarity with Taco Bell tech stack or QSR technology environments</li> <li>Knowledge of speech quality metrics, latency evaluation, or audio test tooling</li> </ul>Location &amp; Travel: <ul> <li>This role is based in Irvine, CA at the Taco Bell offices</li> <li>Hybrid work model: in-office 1–2 days per week required</li> <li>Occasional travel to test markets or pilot sites may be required</li> </ul> Salary Range: $114,900 to $144,000 annually + bonus eligibility. This is the expected salary range for this position. Ultimately, in determining pay, well consider the successful candidate’s location, experience, and other job-related factors.The Yum! Brands story is simple. We have the four distinctive, relevant and easy global brands – KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and The Habit Burger Grill -- born from the hopes and dreams, ambitions and grit of passionate entrepreneurs. And we want more of this to create our future! As the world’s largest restaurant company we have a clear and compelling mission: to build the world’s most love, trusted and fastest-growing restaurant brands. The key and not-so-secret ingredient in our recipe for growth is our unrivaled talent and culture, which fuels our results. We’re looking for talented, motivated, visionary and team-oriented leaders to join us as we elevate and personalize the customer experience across our 48,000 restaurants, operating in 145 countries and territories around the world! We put pizza, chicken and tacos in the hands of customers through customized ordering, unique delivery approaches, app experiences, and click and collect services and consumer data analytics creating unique customer dining experiences – and we are only getting started. Employees may work for a single brand and potentially grow to support all company-owned brands depending on their role. Regardless of where they work, as a company opening an average of 8 restaurants a day worldwide, the growth opportunities are endless. Taco Bell has been named of the 10 Most Innovative Companies in the World by Fast Company; Pizza Hut delivers more pizzas than any other pizza company in the world and KFC’s still use its 75-year-old finger lickin’ good recipe including secret herbs and spices to hand-bread its chicken every day. Yum! and its brands have offices in Chicago, IL, Louisville KY, Irvine, CA, Plano, TX and other markets around the world. We don’t just say we are a great place to work – our commitments to the world and our employees show it. Yum! has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index and ranked among the top 100 Best Corporate Citizens by Corporate Responsibility Magazine in addition to being named to the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index. Our employees work in an environment where the value of “believe in all people” is lived every day, enjoying benefits including but not limited to: 4 weeks’ vacation PLUS holidays, sick leave and 2 paid days to volunteer at the cause of their choice and a dollar-for-dollar matching gift program; generous parental leave; competitive benefits including medical, dental, vision and life insurance as well as a 6% 401k match – all encompassed in Yum!’s world-famous recognition culture.