Test Lead

**Location**: Mainly home based, average 1 day a fortnight in Bradford office

Water is the lifeblood of Yorkshire. 5 million customers use it every day, to make a round of brews, clean a mucky pup or get the washing on. 140,000 businesses rely on it to make steel, style hair or brew pints. And behind every river, reservoir and coastline looked after, every brew made, and every business supplied is Yorkshire Water.

At Yorkshire Water we believe technology holds the key to making the most of this precious resource, and taking care of it, now and in the future. We have a five-year plan that will see us investing heavily in our Technology. Enabling us as a department to focus on our capabilities, increase our delivery and responsiveness for our customers and develop skilled technical and data experts.

Our Technology and Change Delivery department is at the heart of this transformation enabling us to grow our data and operational technology, focus on supplier relationships and keep us all on the straight and narrow by building on our governance and risk capabilities.

We are now looking for a Test Lead to join us on this journey. This means no two days will ever be the same but as Test Lead you will need to really own it and can expect your role to involve:

- Overseeing a team of 5-10 contractors and/or suppliers
- Focus on billing/CRM system delivery projects
- Define test strategies and governance
- Working to an Agile capability
- Application of relevant test automation frameworks

It goes without saying that we are looking for individuals who are great communicators and comfortable conversing and influencing senior leadership stakeholders. A Test Lead who fosters a culture of excellence by defining and refining methods, standards, governance and assurance and is a technical expert and champion of data, technology and analytics throughout everything they do.

**What skills are we looking for**:
**Essential**:

- Encouraging quality behaviours within their teams through leading by example with their rigour, attention to detail and thoroughness.
- Ensuring traceability and appropriate test coverage effectively balancing coverage rigour and risk-based pragmatism.
- Proficient in principles, methods, techniques and tools for the effective management of the testing process and the execution of tests throughout the lifecycle of development projects.
- Seeking to take strategic approaches that add enduring value to the organisation, such as the retention of test assets, reusability, standardised test practices, knowledge sharing.
- Areas of expertise in a testing sub-specialism such as automation, non-functional testing, test data management, etc. and share this value to the service as a whole.
- Excellent knowledge of specific standards associated with the Test practitioner's current role. Examples, ITIL, CMMI/TMMi, ISTQB.
- Excellent knowledge of software tools which automate or assist any part of the testing process, including the test management process, the execution of the tests.
- Demonstrates good judgement on when to deal with a problem and when to raise a timely escalation.
- Demonstrates an analytical and systematic approach to problem solving.
- Communicates fluently orally and in writing.
- Can present complex technical information to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Facilitates collaboration between stakeholders who share common objectives.
- Plans, schedules and monitors work to meet time and quality targets as directed by the Test Manager

**Desirable**
- Experience of working within a large organisation that provides Utility services.
- Experience of implementing methodologies and practices with agile, CI/CD, environment.
- Educated to degree level and or with appropriate professional qualification

How we go about doing our job really matters to us. We all care about what we do, so whatever we’re working on **we own it** and make sure it gets done. We don’t just do this on our own as we know that **we’re better together** - whether that’s with our colleagues, customers, communities or stakeholders we use the power of people to make amazing things happen. And we’re not afraid to try new things, challenge ourselves and others - **we’re always learning** as that’s how we’ll improve.

We’re straight talking, respectful and we get things done with care and compassion, we value, understand and embrace difference. **We have heart.**

Although you will have a permanent friendly office to inspire collaborative thinking, and there may be occasions when there is a business need to attend the office we do offer flexible hybrid working arrangements. We appreciate that we all live busy lives and crave now more than ever a good work/life balance, so together we can discuss what this might look like for you as an individual. After all we know we are all good on our own but together there’s no stopping us