Quality Engineering - Automation Lead

Responsibilities:

• Lead end-to-end QA delivery across projects or releases, ensuring quality objectives are met within timelines.
• Drive a shift-left approach by involving QA early in requirements, design, and planning discussions to prevent defects sooner.
• Prepare test estimates, test plans, and QA timelines based on scope, complexity, dependencies, and delivery commitments.
• Manage the team on a day-to-day basis, including task allocation, progress tracking, blocker resolution, and priority alignment.
• Oversee test design and execution, ensuring adequate functional, integration, regression, and end-to-end test coverage.
• Lead defect management and triage, working closely with developers and stakeholders to prioritise, track, and resolve issues effectively.
• Provide clear QA status reporting, risk visibility, and release readiness updates to stakeholders, while continuously improving testing processes and quality practices.
• Define and execute a pragmatic in-sprint automation approach aligned to release priorities and delivery timelines.
• Build, enhance, and maintain automated test suites using Python and Robot Framework, with hands-on delivery using Playwright and/or Selenium. Support execution across platforms (including tools such as Perfecto where applicable).
• Integrate automation into Azure DevOps pipelines to enable fast feedback, improve release confidence, and reduce cycle time.
• Drive adoption of quality gates, reporting, and repeatable test execution.
• Design and implement automated API and service tests in Python, including REST and gRPC validation.
• Partner with engineering teams to improve service testability and coverage.
• Establish consistent standards for test design, traceability, defect triage, and execution reporting.
• Provide clear, actionable insights on test results, risk, and release readiness.
• Work closely with application teams, platform partners, and QA colleagues to align on automation goals, unblock delivery issues, and coach teams toward sustainable quality practices.
• Identify bottlenecks and failure patterns, and drive improvements in automation reliability, maintainability, execution time, and environment-related readiness.
• Collaborates with delivery teams, application teams, platform partners, and QA colleagues to define automation goals, unblock delivery issues, and drive quality outcomes.
• Works closely with developers and stakeholders for defect management, test coverage, and release readiness.
• Partners with engineering teams to improve service testability and coverage, especially for API and gRPC validation.
• Engages with business analysts, product owners, and project managers to ensure QA involvement early in the project lifecycle.
• Enterprise-wide impact across the DI& A portfolio.
• Responsible for QA automation strategy, delivery, and continuous improvement across multiple projects and releases.
• Directly manages QA team members and oversees their daily activities, task allocation, and performance.
• Influences quality practices and standards across delivery teams and platform partners.
• Measures include delivery throughput, manual testing reduction, release stability, and quality outcomes.

Requirements:

• 7+ years of experience in QA and 4+ years as a QA lead across complex enterprise delivery portfolios.
• Hands-on expertise with Python, Robot Framework, Playwright and/or Selenium for automation.
• Experience in building and maintaining scalable automated test suites.
• Strong knowledge of CI/CD and integrating automated testing into Azure DevOps pipelines.
• Ability to implement lightweight governance (standards, controls, reporting) to improve quality consistency.
• Excellent communication skills with both technical and non-technical partners; able to influence without authority.
• Proactive in identifying risks, inefficiencies, and quality gaps, and taking ownership to resolve them.

Good-to-have skills:

• Service/API testing capability: Exposure to Java-based gRPC tooling is a plus.
• AI-driven development.
• Capital Markets domain experience.