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Team LannisterKarlsruhe, Germany

Basal John

Head of Quality Engineering at Thomann.io.

I build quality into how software ships - and I build the people who keep it that way. Patience, mentoring, and a long view on systems.

Get in touchGitHub
Basal John
01

About

I'm the Head of Quality Engineering at Thomann.io and a mentor with years in the industry, focused on the part of software that decides whether anyone trusts it: quality. In 2022 I stood up Team Lannister, the Quality Engineering team at Thomann.io, and I've led it since.

My job is two things at once. I keep the test platform honest - automation, stability, performance, the pipelines that gate every release - and I grow the engineers who own it. I care most about the second one. Careers, not tickets.

People who work with me tend to mention the same things: patience, a steady hand, and a habit of thinking a few moves ahead. I'd rather fix the system that produced a bug than the bug.

Role
Head of Quality Engineering
Company
Thomann.io
Team
Lannister, est. 2022
Based
Karlsruhe, Germany
Focus
QE platforms & people
02

Experience

2022 - Present

Thomann.io

Head of Quality Engineering

I lead Team Lannister, the Quality Engineering group that safeguards software quality across Thomann's product teams - Discovery, Storefront, APPic, and FXP. That means owning the test strategy and the platform underneath it, and being accountable for what reaches customers.

  • Founded and grew Team Lannister from the ground up, defining how QE works across four product teams.
  • Own recruiting end to end - interviewing, hiring, and onboarding quality engineers.
  • Run career-path development and mentoring, with measurable progression as the goal.
  • Drive the test framework's evolution: automation, E2E coverage, stability and performance monitoring.
  • Champion AI in QE - bringing Claude into day-to-day workflows and PR review to move faster.
03

Selected work

  1. 01

    QE Dashboard

    Observability

    A single place to read quality across every team - consolidating metrics and alerting so signal isn't scattered across tools. One screen answers 'are we okay to ship?'

    • Grafana
    • Metrics
    • Alerting
  2. 02

    Database Solution for QE

    Platform

    A permanent home for QV metrics, alerts, and flaky-test detection in one database system - replacing throwaway exports with durable, queryable history of test health.

    • SQL
    • Flaky detection
    • Metrics
  3. 03

    AI Sandbox - Claude Integration

    AI in QE

    Bringing Claude into QE workflows to accelerate authoring and reviews, including automated resolution of PR comments. Less time on toil, more on the hard cases.

    • Claude
    • PR automation
    • Workflows
  4. 04

    Playwright Migration

    Test automation

    Migrating E2E suites - starting with Search and Subcategories - onto Playwright for faster, more reliable browser tests and a cleaner authoring experience.

    • Playwright
    • E2E
    • CI/CD
  5. 05

    Standardizing ESLint

    Code quality

    A dedicated internal NPM package for shared ESLint rules - one source of truth so quality standards are enforced consistently across every repository.

    • ESLint
    • NPM
    • GitHub Actions
04

Skills

Leadership & Management

  • Team management
  • Mentoring
  • Strategic planning
  • Career-path development
  • Recruitment & interviewing

Quality Engineering

  • Test automation
  • E2E testing
  • Stability tests
  • Performance monitoring
  • CI/CD pipelines
  • Test framework evolution
  • AI-assisted QE

Tools & Frameworks

  • Playwright
  • ESLint
  • Grafana
  • GitHub Actions
  • Jira
  • Notion
  • Slack

05 / Contact

Let's talk quality.

Building a QE team, weighing a test strategy, or just comparing notes on leading engineers - my inbox is open.

Emailbasal.john@thomann.ioGitHubbasal-john

Currently in Karlsruhe, Germany - and learning German, now working through A2.