Head of QA

**We are currently recruiting for a Head of QA (test team) for our client in Surrey (flexible working c1 day per week in the office / hybrid)** This role will be responsible for leading our clients QA test team consisting of in-house and external manual and automation testers, working in agile teams on the businesses software products for its global corporate clients. The individual will expectedto ensure QA best practice is applied. **Responsibilities** - Own E2E Test Strategy for the companies software products, including governance, quality assurance and reporting - Line management of manual and automation test engineers - Hands on with Agile Development Teams to help create functional and non-functional test cases - Lead and plan acceptance testing of the software releases, supported by Product Owners and Professional Services team as required - Work closely with on-shore and off-shore teams to ensure the Test Strategy is applied during development - Support compliance to ISO27001, providing input to Information Security Management Systems policies, processes and controls - Obtain a good working knowledge of the clientsccf products from a user perspective **Skills and Experience** - Line management of manual and automation QA staff (Essential) - Previous experience working for either a software product company, SaaS company, bespoke software house or specialist software testing company (Essential) - Experience in development and implementing Test Strategies (Essential) - Experience of defining and creating both functional and non-functional test cases (Essential) - Experience of testing web-based, transactional systems with complex user interface (Essential), online web forms (Essential) and REST APIs (Essential) - An excellent understanding of defect management (workflow), test cycle planning (smoke, functional, non-functional and regression) and test progress reporting (Essential) - Experience working within Agile development teams (Scrum and Kanban) and use of agile tools for test purposes : Jira for defect management (E), Zephyr for test case management (Desirable) - Understanding of XML/XSDs (E) and Database tools (Essential) - Experience working with Development Teams, both in-house (Essential) and off-shore (Desirable) - Good written and verbal communication skills (Essential). - Ability to articulate technical issues (defects) clearly and concisely (Essential) - Analytical and problem solving skills (D) - Any automation knowledge or experience using Selenium an advantage (D) - Team player. Comfortable working in a small company environment and "hands-on" in the sense of doing what - Domain Expertise - Ideally have some relevant background in at least one or more of the following areas (D): - Trade and/or Trade Finance; Financial services products; B2B, SaaS, transactional products **Location** - The role is based at the global office in Surrey. - The client is flexible on working from home arrangements but expect staff to be in the office typically 1 day a week.