Quality Engineering and Governance Manager

Key Responsibilities

• Own the comprehensive test strategy, test pyramid, and quality gates; embed shift-left and risk-based testing practices aligned with SDLC and change governance.
• Define the automation-first roadmap, establishing coverage targets, pipeline gates, coding standards, and rigorous traceability mapping from requirements to tests and defects.

• Plan and run functional, system/integration, UAT, performance, and sanity/regression cycles with clear entry/exit criteria and evidence-based go/no-go frameworks.
• Ensure environment readiness and proper test data management (including synthetic and anonymized data), while maintaining updated test calendars for releases and hotfixes.

• Build and maintain reliable UI, API, and performance automation frameworks; seamlessly integrate tests into CI/CD pipelines (PR checks, nightly runs, release gates) and actively reduce flaky tests.
• Introduce advanced testing strategies such as contract testing, service virtualization/mocks, and automated test data generation to effectively shift testing left.

• Facilitate comprehensive UAT planning, readiness, execution, and sign-off processes with business owners, ensuring strict alignment between project scope and acceptance criteria.
• Coordinate sanity and regression windows, and transparently communicate RAG status, testing risks, and mitigations to product, engineering, and ops leaders.

• Direct the complete defect lifecycle from initial logging and triage through fixing, retesting, verification, and final closure, adhering to strict severity standards and resolution SLAs
• Link defects to active incidents, Post-Incident Reviews (PIRs), and known-error databases in tandem with the Incident Manager and Problem Manager to drive root cause analyses (RCAs) and preventive actions.

• Build, coach, and manage the performance of a blended team consisting of manual testers, SDETs, and performance engineers, while hiring and upskilling talent toward test automation.
• Forecast team capacity, prioritize testing backlogs, and efficiently manage partner/vendor teams alongside associated testing budgets.

• Define and publish key quality KPIs (such as escape/reopen/recurrence rates, automation %, flaky rates, cycle times, and UAT outcomes) via automated dashboards.
• Lead project retrospectives and improvement experiments designed to scale test coverage, shorten cycle times, and strengthen systemic reliability.

Job Requirements

• Experience: 7+ years in software testing, including a minimum of 3+ years leading QA/test teams.
• Automation Expertise: Hands-on experience with test automation across UI and APIs, alongside deep CI/CD pipeline integration experience.
• Methodology & Frameworks: Strong grounding in test design techniques, performance/NFR testing, and UAT facilitation.
• Process Governance: Proven governance over the defect/issue lifecycle and a history of close collaboration with Incident and Problem Management functions.
• Communication: Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills; capable of confidently presenting risk data and quality evidence to executive leadership.
• Work Setup: Must be willing to work strictly On-site.

• Test Management: Xray/Zephyr, TestRail, Tricentis/Katalon.
• Automation: Playwright, Cypress, Selenium, Tricentis, Katalon.
• API Testing: REST Assured, Postman, Newman.
• Performance: k6, JMeter, Gatling.
• CI/CD & Reporting: GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins; Allure/ReportPortal; Grafana.
• ALM & Defect Tracking: Jira, with specific expertise navigating custom workflows that structurally connect defects, incidents, and root-cause problems.

• An automation-first mindset that pragmatically balances deep testing (API/contract) with end-to-end (E2E) coverage.
• Systems thinking approach characterized by analytical problem solving and data-driven decision making.
• Strong influencing and facilitation skills to secure cross-functional alignment across engineering, product, and business UAT teams.
• Proven people leadership qualities focusing on active coaching, performance feedback, career development, and vendor management.
• Continuous improvement orientation backed by clear and concise communication.

• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and broader DevOps practices (e.g., Jenkins, Git, Bitbucket).
• Experience with test automation frameworks like Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) as well as Keyword-Driven or Data-Driven Testing methodologies.
• Solid knowledge of Agile methodologies and standard test lifecycle documentation.
• Exposure to tools such as Jenkins Pipelines, CI/CD platforms, GitLab, and bug logging systems.