Quality Assurance Manager

Position Summary

The Quality Assurance Manager will collaborate with leadership and scrum/project teams to support and improve the development of quality best practices as they relate to the organizational objectives within their respective business unit. This individual will own the overall QA, practices for their business unit and ensure processes and best practices are documented and followed.

This role will work closely with their direct reports and alongside development, and portfolio teams to help understand risk, value, efficiency, and quality of the project to report back to leadership and stakeholders. Close collaboration and mentorship of team members will be required to provide support and leadership to direct reports.

Efforts may include the ability to create, organize and execute a test strategy for any given application or large project, including integration, UNIT, migration, regression, smoke testing and proper documentation sign off occurs across business units. Trouble shooting and detailed risk analysis may also be required to accurately relay concerns and information to all involved parties in a clear concise manner.

The ideal candidate cultivates a team atmosphere that is collaborative and promotes business impact. This role requires someone who can lead and coach by example, has a strong technical background and understanding of the business needs and has a willingness to solve complex; as well as simple challenges with equal energy and excitement to provide the highest level of quality in every delivery.

About The Team

You will join the Retail software engineering group of teams supporting our legacy applications and our modernization initiative. The modernization initiative is a multi-year initiative that includes the reimagining, reinventing, and implementation of the legacy applications and systems that the entire Retail company uses daily. These teams are comprised of talented, engaged individuals that are dedicated to that mission, continuous improvement, and providing awesome customer experiences.

Primary Responsibilities

• Provide leadership in defining Quality Best Practices, Metrics, and Opportunities to mature our quality skills, capabilities, and practices throughout Retail Technology
• Develop, implement, maintain, and communicate the Company's quality strategy, vision and associated programs to mature our Quality practices
• Serve as an internal subject matter expert and build and mature quality functions across Clayton Technology
• Foster a culture of excellence, innovation, and continuous improvement
• Establish and maintain Quality metrics and reporting mechanisms to provide visibility into the quality and security of software products, releases, and associated code and identify areas for improvement
• Seek to find opportunities in Quality processes, proposing changes across the team to evaluate and implement with the goal of maturing the Quality practice for the larger team
• Drive the establishment of quality guidelines, processes, and best practices for system, automation, performance, load testing, and security and risk abatement, ensuring understanding and buy-in across the organization
• Advocate quality in every stage of the Solution Delivery Lifecycle process, working with Portfolio, Software Engineering, and ETO (infrastructure) teams to implement proposed practices and guidelines
• Develop and implement a strategic roadmap for automation, data, load, performance and API testing initiatives to improve efficiency, scalability, and product quality
• Establishes quality and reliability standards by engaging with members of management and with quality analysts, product owners, portfolio managers, and software engineers

• Manages staff selection, hiring, development, and retention. Establishes and monitors work goals and objectives. Evaluates employees through performance and development conversations, ongoing coaching, and feedback methods.
• Provides QA support, including planning, scheduling, budget, and performance for QA activities.
• Promotes communication to enhance and encourage employee awareness of QA requirements.

• Creates suggests and recommends modifications to standard testing processes to improve quality and effectiveness in all areas including test management, strategy, planning and analysis.
• Works within the larger organization to ensure employee and process effectiveness by monitoring performance or other key data driven metrics.
• Sets clear expectations and ensures appropriate staffing and delegation.

Primary Qualifications

• Implementing frameworks for quality best practices, including measurements of effectiveness
• Experience in multiple forms for testing including, but not limited to: Unit testing, performance testing, integration testing, manual testing, load testing, automated testing into a CI/CD pipeline, and others as appropriate
• Excellent interpersonal, verbal and written communication skills and the ability to interact with a diverse group of team members, including executives, managers, professionals, and subject matter experts
• Strong analytical, problem solving and project management skills
• Expertise in developing and maintaining test frameworks, tools, and automation scripts using languages such as Python, Java, or similar techniques
• Research new or better automated, performance, and load testing solutions to keep pace with evolving company needs and requirements
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent technical and business experience
• Proven leadership experience (3-5 years) and technical experience (5-7 years) in quality assurance, system testing, and automation

Desired Skills

• Proven ability to manage and/or monitor the Quality Assurance activities associated with a discipline or project daily.
• Understanding of the development and implementation of a Quality Assurance structure and knowledge of best practices including various types of testing including manual and automation testing.
• Ability to complete all work tasks in a timely manner while remaining flexible to competing demands and adjust priorities.
• Ability to oversee one or more simultaneous projects.
• Ability to distinguish the audiences and tailor communications accordingly.
• Ability to serve as a role model for performance and organizational behavior in the leadership role.
• Ability to generate a shared commitment to the organization, build morale, and encourage ownership of goals.
• Ability to motivate team members to achieve and exceed goals by establishing accountabilities, clarifying performance expectations, monitoring, and reviewing performance, and providing timely and relevant feedback.
• Ability to encourage team members to work collaboratively to accomplish goals that individual team members could not accomplish alone.
• Ability to foster an environment open to new alternatives to traditional methods and approaches.
• Ability to delegate, when appropriate, and clearly communicate objectives, tasks, long-term benefits, and expectations for outcomes to empower team members to take greater responsibility.
• Deep understanding of Agile Methodologies and agile team management.
• Familiarity with Tosca or other automated testing platform
• Bachelor’s Degree, preferably in Computer Science or Information Technology, or 5-7 years of equivalent experience
• Minimum 5 years’ experience in Quality Assurance

Behavioral Competencies

• Driving Results: Establishes accountabilities, clarifies expectations, measures performance, and provides feedback to motivate goal achievement.
• Team Building: Enables and encourages group members to work together to achieve tasks and goals.
• Influence and Persuasion: Persuades, convinces, influences, or impresses others to support a specific agenda or course of action.
• Collaboration and Teamwork: Works collaboratively with others to achieve mutual goals.
• Deliberative Decision Making: Gathers, considers, and evaluates information to make logical conclusions.
• Planning and Priority Setting: Identifies priorities, processes, and actions necessary to achieve an objective or idea.
• Composure and Resiliency: Deals effectively with pressure, remains optimistic and recovers quickly from setbacks.
• Communicating: Provides information concisely and unambiguously, ensuring the receiver understands the message.
• Analytical Thinking: Takes calculated risks when making decisions.
• Accountability: Takes responsibility for performance and ownership of issues, problems, and opportunities.
• Managing Innovation: An individual who exhibits this competency will create opportunities by fostering an environment open to new or radical alternatives to traditional methods, approaches, and products.

Business Unit - B00023