The VP of Global IT QA

VP Of Global IT QA

The VP of Global IT QA will provide leadership, strategy & direction with an overall accountability for IT Quality Assurance teams across all Centralized QA functions. This includes overseeing multiple teams of full-time employees and consultants. This person will drive modernization in our processes in all facets of QA, including functional/manual, automated, load/performance and more. Success in the role is measured by (1) ROI on capability investments, (2) level of quality of delivered projects/products/applications/platforms (3) speed and efficiency of QA activities, and (4) overall advancement of QA capabilities.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

• Sets, drives and executes the overall QA Strategy that aligns to the wider IT strategy across all QA teams. Including new technologies, processes and / or procedures in pursuit of continuous improvement.
• Drives to centralize, modernize and update practices/policy to ensure scalability of resources is setup for success and continued growth.
• Coordinate with the CIO, CTO and other technology leaders to identify and prioritize key systems initiatives and ensure cohesive end-to-end quality assurance of all enterprise solutions.
• Leads the IT Quality Assurance group through a clearly defined process-driven methodology to ensure project goals, QA standards, and internal best practices are routinely and meticulously followed.
• Partners with Business and Development teams to review business / technical requirements and guides and assists QA leads in generating comprehensive test strategy, plans, impact analysis and test cases for effective assurance and testing functions.
• Perform QA recruiting and vendor management activities. Responsible for hiring and managing employees and onshore and offshore contractors and managing vendor contracts and SLAs four sourced arrangements.
• Contribute to and define and establish new set of best-practices, processes, scorecards and tooling for Quality Assurance organization. This is to ensure that overall productivity and quality is measured at all times and improved in line with targeted milestones.
• Serves as the Test Automation expert. Responsible for establishing a standards-based automation / performance testing competency with a robust testing framework, testing & test management tools, test data and test cases for key applications across the portfolio.
• Publishes a standardized QA productivity as well as Project and Release Testing status reporting across all projects / applications on a weekly / recurring basis.
• Assumes ownership and governance of QA environment. This involves coordinating the refresh of databases, environments and review / approval of application build releases to QA environments and shakedown testing of these environments.

TECHNICAL QUALIFICATIONS

• 5+ years of Insurance industry experience required
• 10 + years as a QA leader (lead, manager or director or above)
• 15+ years QA experience required
• Experience is required in managing software / application quality assurance at scale
• Proven track record in leading development of test automation strategy, tools and frameworks
• Expert level, hands-on experience with Automation Testing Tools (Client QTP, Selenium, etc.)
• Expert level, hands-on experience with performance testing tools (LoadRunner, AppLoader, etc.)
• Strong hands-on experience with test planning and execution for UI as well as back-office systems that require Web services or batch-based integrations and implementations.
• In-depth software engineering and development lifecycle knowledge
• Strong understanding of network and security design and the implication of these on performance; and ability recommend alternative solutions for addressing application bottlenecks.
• QA leadership experience with DuckCreek or Guidewire Insurance solutions are highly preferred.
• Strong management and leadership experience
• Comfortable with fast-paced and schedule driven development

GENERAL QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience leading leaders.
• Experience working with and leading offsite teams is required.
• Experience managing team and tooling costs along with understanding on capex vs opex cost strategies.
• Must have strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Possess knowledge of integration with enterprise systems and overall architectural standards.
• Candidate has personal time-management skills with an ability to meet individual, and team deadlines.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and organization skills.
• Possess the ability to communicate effectively with business users alongside multiple IT team disciplines.
• Insurance industry experience is considered a plus.

EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems Management, Mathematics or related field is strongly preferred.