Head of QA and Testing

**Head of QA & Testing, Hybrid, Permanent, London**

The Head of QA & Testing with be responsible for the strategic growth of the QA & Testing function ensuring new people, processes, best practices are established and thrive in Pay.UK and the UK Payments Industry. Build and mature QA & Testing within Pay.UK to keep pace with strategic change to ensure services remain relevant to customers, technology changes and regulatory developments. A leader in the industry with a deep appreciation of the retail payments ecosystem and known for effectively facilitating strategic industry change to command trust and confidence with Pay.UK Executive and Board.

The scale of the ecosystem impact by the decisions made under the Head of QA & Testing will impact the entire Pay.UK customer base, right to the end user individuals, businesses and government that depend on what Pay.UK provides. QA & Testing is a key enabler to facilitate value creation across the end-to-end payments experience for the benefit of our customers, their customers, and the UK economy.

Responsible for the creation, implementation and maintenance of QA & Testing policies and strategies. These will enable secure, robust and effective functioning of the underlying technology Pay.UK operate. Looking to bring together the various functions across Pay.UK to become more cognizant of the role they play in running an effective QA & Testing function within the company.

**Key Accountabilities**
- Accountable for QA & Testing organisational design, workforce planning, staffing, budgeting, strategy and philosophy across Pay.UK
- Build and run a central service function consisting of QA & Test professionals that support QA &Test planning, preparation, execution and reporting across large scale programmes and BAU
- Develop and encourage a QA philosophy and best practices that level up how Pay.UK develop/build in the innovation stage as well as how Pay.UK set foundations for quality practice within vendor development teams
- Build the central QA & Testing function that supports architecture, business analysis, vendor development, service management, other central technology efforts and directly manage & guide the work of individual contributors on those teams
- Strategically determine the best ways to service the production BAU needs whether that is embedded resources or centralised service teams across vertices of requirements, quality, and cost
- Own, implement and govern the Master Test Strategy for Next Gen Programme across Pay.UK and the customers, vendors, market overlay service providers, BoE and regulators
- Oversee vendors in performing testing on all features required by Pay.UK, its customers, and regulators ensuring quality standards are met
- Create the vision for QA approach & philosophy in early stage development across Vendor specific testing including integration with other directorates, best practices and standards across QA, and customisation to the needs of individual programme/project teams in Pay.UK
- Develop strategic frameworks that empower teams to be held accountable for upholding quality, security, performance, resilience, customer and regulatory impact as an essential factor in decision-making
- Manage vendors, suppliers, contracts, tool licenses and outsourced testing teams
- Manage testing budget and forecasts to ensure financial targets are met
- Responsible for a comprehensive Test Data, Defect Management, Environment and Test Automation strategies across Pay.UK.

**Skills, Experience & Qualifications**
- ISTQB or ISEB Foundation (Essential)
- ISTQB Advance, ISEB Practitioner or equivalent in Testing (Essential)
- ITIL V3 Qualifications (Essential)
- Established demonstratable career in QA & Testing within Financial Services including Payments
- Articulate, detail orientated, and skilled to display a clear level of intelligence when liaising with various stakeholders within the business and have an ability to perform consistently in a role that is vital to the success of Pay.UK
- Have a wealth of direct experience within financial services, with experience in the building QA & Testing teams within Payments/Banking
- Experience of stakeholder negotiation to align interests to overcome challenges with strategic intent and technical proficiency
- Knowledge of the regulatory and supervisory regime as it applies to Pay.UK
- Experience in complex organisations with diverse stakeholders and significant regulatory oversight
- Management experience building and running efficient teams and exposure to ExCo level decision making preferred
- Evident experience in Head of QA/Programme Test Management on large and complex programmes within Financial Services across multiple teams
- Demonstrable experience of leading testing on a multi-vendor/multi-customer programme
- Clear experience of implementing effective QA & Testing best practices across entire SDLC
- QA & Testing skills across entire SDLC for all types/phases of testing (not just Functional