Marius Ene — Senior Functional QA Consultant (B2B, EU)

Now

What I’m doing in the current chapter.

In progress

At Definia I stay close to what users feel and what the business needs to decide. One thread closed mobile and wearable journeys with clear release readiness and handover; another keeps a confidential web product honest — functional behaviour first, with AI only where technical checks would otherwise steal focus from the user.

Product names stay off this page. The pattern is the point: protect the user journey, make risk visible to the business, leave the team able to continue without me.

What I do

Quality pointed at the user — and the business.

Functional judgement first. Technical depth second, and mostly accelerated by AI so it never becomes the whole story.

Product validation

Does this still serve the user and the business case? I validate journeys, acceptance, and release risk — not coverage theatre.

Stakeholder engagement & UAT

Cross-functional alignment with Product, Engineering, and business owners. UAT that produces a ship/wait decision, not a late checklist.

Functional quality & practice

Strategy, guidelines, defect hygiene, and Quality Maturity views so friction becomes visible — and fixable — without slowing delivery.

AI for the technical layer

Security, performance, and automation scaffolding via AI — so my hours stay on functional truth and stakeholders, not tooling rabbit holes.

Mission

AI for technical noise. Humans for the user.

In this age it is easy to confuse more automation with more value. I use AI so I can spend my best hours on user journeys, acceptance, and business risk — not on wiring the technical layer by hand.

Technical work, delegated with care

I use Cursor and ChatGPT to draft API checks, shape performance scenarios, and clear repetitive setup. That is scaffolding — not the mission.

Human judgement stays on the user

Pass/fail for what matters still comes from user journeys, acceptance criteria, and business risk. A fluent model answer is never an oracle for release.

Speed that serves the core

AI buys back time for exploratory thinking, stakeholder alignment, and asking whether we are still serving the user — the part more teams forget while polishing pipelines.

“Serve the user. Protect the business. Let AI draft the technical checks — never the meaning of done.”

Experience

Clients, capacity, and what I delivered.

Fourteen years keeping programmes honest about users and outcomes — as employee, freelance, seconded consultant, and B2B. Tools change. Serving the user does not.

Product validation

User journeys & acceptance over tooling theatre

Stakeholders

UAT, Product, Engineering — shared “done”

14+ years

Sodexo · UBS · Siemens · banking · gaming

B2B EU

Trend Waves SRL · AI for technical scaffolding

Definia

2026 — present

Digital product consultancy

Quality Assurance Consultant

B2B consultant · SC Trend Waves SRL

Embedded functional QA for product teams — user journeys and business release calls first. Technical checks are supported with AI so attention stays on what users and stakeholders feel.

Mobile and wearable QA: iOS/Android journeys, wearable integration checks, regression, defect reporting, release readiness
Also guarding a confidential web product — functional behaviour first; AI assists API/performance scaffolding in the background
Raise user friction as stories or clear defects so Product can act before production teaches the same lesson

Product names under NDA — pattern and outcomes are public.

Sodexo

2022 — 2026

Global facilities & delivery platforms

Functional QA Engineer & Test Practice Manager

Employed via Odeen / Oxford Corp → B2B from late 2022

Grew from embedded functional QA into test practice leadership on programmes serving clients worldwide — always asking whether quality work served users and delivery decisions, not just activity metrics.

Functional QA on global facility / delivery platforms — retail services through Delivery Service Platform streams
Aligned with Head of Engineering, Tech Leads, and Product on requirements, incidents, and release reporting
Checked Figma intent against functional behaviour; compatibility and cross-browser verification
Grew into test lead work: interviewing QA, consolidating strategy, Quality Maturity Matrix for leadership
Azure DevOps dashboards and defect hygiene so quality was visible without status theatre
Covered Product Owner / Scrum Master gaps when delivery needed continuity

Four years inside a global brand — practice, not just tickets.

Playtika

2022

Mobile games

QA Engineer

Employed · studio QA

Short, high-intensity studio engagement supporting release quality and production incident response.

Functional testing and production incident pairing with developers
Shortened art-integration feedback by pairing with designers
Charles Proxy asset tracking and App Insights crash analysis in pre-production

Cegeka

2019 — 2022

Smart cities & multi-tenant platforms

Agile Tester

Freelance / contract QA

Long-running freelance mission for QPark (via Cegeka) — multi-tenant parking and smart-city services across customer-facing, back-office, mobile, and API journeys.

End-to-end functional QA: C2C parking sessions, back-office tools, native iOS/Android, APIs, Sitecore content
Integrations across a multi-application estate (including Dynamics Nav / Navision touchpoints)
Transversal team alignment, device prioritisation, and support for QA hiring interviews

Nearly three years trusted as the quality backbone of a complex integration estate.

IT Teams · Priority Software

2020 — 2021

ERP / enterprise UI

QA Engineer

Part-time contract (parallel to Cegeka)

Parallel engagement simplifying a complex ERP experience — test design, release discipline, and knowledge transfer for a small product team.

User stories, defects, and reporting in JIRA; design and execution in TestRail
Release management validations, production incident reproduction, and onboarding handovers
Functional and end-to-end testing on a modernised ERP UI layer

Netcentric

2016 — 2019

Digital experience · banking & industrial

QA Engineer

Employed · multi-client Adobe programmes

Adobe Experience programmes for global brands — UBS (Switzerland & Americas) and Siemens — where stakeholder UAT and process quality mattered as much as finding bugs.

AEM, Adobe Campaign, and DAM journeys from back-office setup to end-user experience
Stakeholder and UAT alignment; production incident pairing; compatibility across clients and devices
Process improvements that stuck: defect template (~40% fewer developer returns), automated JIRA reporting (~70% less report effort), E2E docs (~30% less team effort)

Named brand programmes + measurable process wins.

ALTEN Romania

2015 — 2016

Banking & BPM

Quality Assurance Consultant

Consultant seconded to banking clients

Client-facing consultancy across two banking programmes — mobile banking quality and business-process platforms.

ING Belgium Homebank: mobile compatibility, regression/exploratory, SAFe PI planning, shift-left pair testing with developers, and a clean handover to the Belgium team
Raiffeisen BPM (Appian): test cases in HP ALM, JIRA/Confluence hygiene, deployment reports, and Agile process improvements

Code Factory · OpenBet / Ladbrokes

2014 — 2015

Betting & gaming platforms

Test Analyst

Employed · games sub-stream lead (QA)

Owned QA for the Games sub-stream on a major betting platform — from junior analyst to the person accountable for release risk on that slice.

Sole QA then lead for Games (slots & related): smoke, regression, risk-based prioritisation, KPIs
Stood up Agile/Kanban for production incidents; Postman API collections; iOS/Android compatibility
Aligned with Sports Betting and Wallet streams for platform-wide releases and campaign readiness

Bandai Namco Games Romania

2012 — 2014

Mobile games

QA Tester

Employed · studio QA

Foundation years in exploratory, compliance, and regression testing for mobile games — where noticing what players feel still matters more than ticking a sheet.

Exploratory and checklist-driven execution; defect logging and retesting in JIRA
iOS/Android compatibility; gameplay and design-doc analysis; progress reporting to leads

Writing

Notes from the quality seat.

Notes on keeping quality aimed at users and the business — and on using AI for technical work without letting it steal the mission.

P05 min

Defect backlog hygiene beats writing more cases

Stale bugs drain more engineering time than missing coverage. How I clean a backlog without theatre.

P16 min

Mobile QA beyond “run it on BrowserStack”

Device farms are useful. They are not a strategy. What I actually check on native, mobile web, and wearables.

P15 min

AI in QA without fake confidence

I use AI to accelerate API and performance work. I do not let a model decide that a release is safe.

P05 min

UAT without theatre

User acceptance fails when “done” was never shared. How I set UAT up so stakeholders decide with evidence.

P14 min

Release readiness people can actually read

A good release note is a decision aid. Not a dump of tickets and green ticks.

P25 min

Mentoring QA without cloning yourself

Growing engineers is not copying your habits. It is building judgement they can use when you leave.

P05 min

When more automation hides a broken user journey

Pipelines get greener while users still struggle. How I keep functional truth ahead of technical coverage.

P15 min

Hiring a functional QA consultant: questions that expose theatre

If you are buying QA help, these questions separate user judgement from coverage theatre.

P14 min

Remote B2B QA: embed without becoming a bottleneck

How I join European product teams as B2B without turning every question into a waiting room.

P24 min

Defects Product thanks you for (and ones they ignore)

Not every bug earns attention. How I write findings that serve the user and the backlog.

All writing

How we work

Straightforward B2B engagement.

B2B / contract via SC Trend Waves SRL
Remote across Europe from Romania
Functional first — user journeys and business risk before tooling
Evidence Product and leadership can read without a translator

Contact

Let’s talk about your next release.

If you need someone who will fight for the user journey and the business call — not just more technical coverage — let’s talk.

Connect with me