Director QA and Automation

Job Description

The Role

Reporting to the Sr Director IT Operations, this Director position as Global QA & Automation will manage a dispersed group of resources across the globe. The position holder forms a critical component in the IT departments’ ability to deliver high-quality services across their portfolio who will ensure that our in-house developed and purchased products are production ready. The ideal candidate for this role should be excited about technology, can speak in large groups about changes/the need for change, and establish a positive platform to bridge IT change. Directs and oversees all aspects of the organization's policies, objectives, initiatives, and operations as it relates to global quality assurance, and other duties as assigned. Program manages large, high visibility corporate efforts. Sets strategic direction for Quality Assurance & Automation. Builds relationships with business partners to help deliver change and support growth.

Highlights of the role

Leading a global and regional operation, this position will be responsible for oversight of a cohesive organization that will centralize and expand its global Quality Assurance (QA) & Automations efforts in the Ad Sales, Affiliate Sales and Content business areas, as well as, its D2C service areas and corporate applications such as Messaging and Identity.
This position will be responsible for completing QA strategy and goals, team meetings, one-on-one meetings, and resource planning for each of their direct reports. This position will manage both full time regular (FTE) and contingent worker (CW) resources and will work extremely closely with the various global technology teams, as well as the various groups within IT Operations org such as QA analyst, manual testers and automations engineers.
The Director QA & Automation will be required to manage and provide leadership and mentoring to subordinates working in a more traditional waterfall development methodology and in an Agile/Scrum methodology and manage IT departmental budget and maintain relationships with vendors to establish best practices and cost-effective solutions. Assist in the development, maintenance, and communication of KPIs for all areas of responsibility. Manage IT changes and build strong alignment with partners to earn trust.

Responsibilities
• Lead and coordinate IT Quality Assurance and Automation function that support global Discovery and Legacy TVN platform

• Mentor team and work with resources to achieve their professional objectives and improve upon their areas for development

• Establish world-class QA strategy, processes and procedures for both a traditional waterfall software development life cycle (SDLC) and an Agile/Scrum SDLC for ensuring that IT products are of the highest possible quality and meet business expectations and requirements

• Create test plan templates to be used for all QA efforts and ensure proper storage of these documents for internal and external auditing purposes

• Provides automated testing tool(s) and ensure that they are fully utilized to the extent possible

• Drives continuous improvement to key metrics through process, system, and organizational refinements

• Develops metrics relating to QA process and ensure continuous improvements against stated metrics

• In partnership with Product and Engineering Leadership - speaks with business unit, division, and network leaders to understand what is critical to their business and how GT&O can help them achieve their strategic and tactical goals

• Partner with the PMO, Product, global Engineering and Technology Operations teams on technology introduction. Ensures the smooth transition of services into live

• Create a “virtual” operation, to ensure the organization is properly staffed. Leads an integrated global customer driven support organization based on collaboration, best practices, standards, efficiency, and commitment to effective service delivery and responsiveness to the needs of the business

• Support the development and implementation of related global support standards, processes and documentation

• Ability to speak effectively in large groups; prepare and deliver information

• Be aware of upcoming technology trends and determine areas we might want to pilot

• A commitment to travel domestically and internationally, to the satellite offices as required

Requirements
• Bachelor’s degree in Management, IT related field, or equivalent work experience

• 10+ years’ experience in the IT function

• 5+ years’ experience in an Enterprise-level QA Management

• Working knowledge of ITIL and ISTQB required. Foundation certifications desired. Must be able to effectively communicate with owners of ITIL and SDLC processes

• Experience leading the system, product, integration, browser compatibility, regression, and user acceptance testing / Quality Assurance of client server and Web applications

• Experience working with automated functional (Worksoft) and load testing tools (LoadRunner)

• Experience testing in an environment with technologies such as AJAX, HTML, Dojo, CSS, J2EE, SOA, Oracle, SQL Server

• Excellent verbal, written, interpersonal communication skills

• Demonstrated ability to recruit, develop, and retain staff

• Strong ability to demonstrate and execute professional communication skills to all levels

• Ability to proactively communicate to senior leadership on areas of opportunity and a solutions-oriented problem solver

• Ability to manage multiple, concurrent projects - with varying levels of priority – and to deliver projects on-time and within budget

• Positive attitude and experience with motivating a team

• Ability to maintain focus in a high-pressure environment

• Able to demonstrate a high degree of flexibility, including flexibility in working hours to support employees and customers across multiple time zones.

• Ability to speak a second language is preferred especially French or Polish

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-roqxwp-3-137-178-133-42 in your application.