Quality Assurance Lead (QA Lead) Permanent Role

Job Purpose

To Lead the Test Implementation in accordance with the agreed Quality Assurance principles and standards in order to manage the Product risk and inter-dependencies during the Product Life-Cycle. Ensure alignment across Business Analysis, Development, Quality Assurance and Environment to optimize the testing efficiencies across the Product delivery stack. Ensure team effectiveness and healthy team dynamics.

Job Responsibilities

• Build a deep understanding of the business need in order to contribute to the ongoing value proposition.


• Liaise with Stakeholders across Group Technology to build a network that will align to nWoW.


• Participate in the sprint planning, and success criteria per story/epic.


• Participate in the Squad backlog grooming.


• Facilitate the daily stand-up where necessary and manage the issues raised by the Software Quality & Test Engineers and remove any blockers.


• Encourage the Software Quality & Test Engineers to collaborate across team to ensure efficient implementation of Product and ensure automation governance is adhered to by all.


• Facilitate the handover of QA deliverables for all testing phases.


• Review and ensure all QA artefacts are stored centrally.


• Encourage continuous learning and questioning of the business and technology.


• Allow for and encourage significant investment in the end-to-end QA design.


• Review and prioritize all issues raised by the Software Quality & Test Engineers.


• Work with the Enterprise Quality Assurance Chapter Lead on the metrics and reporting to communicate testing status.


• Ensure the QA deliverables produced aligned to the test approach.


• Encourage the Software Quality & Test Engineers to collaborate across team to ensure efficient implementation of Product and ensure automation governance is adhered to by all.


• Facilitate the handover of QA deliverables for all testing phases.


• Review and ensure all QA artefacts are stored centrally.


• Encourage continuous learning and questioning of the business and technology.


• Allow for and encourage significant investment in the end-to-end QA design.


• Review and prioritize all issues raised by the Software Quality & Test Engineers.


• Work with the Enterprise Quality Assurance Chapter Lead on the metrics and reporting to communicate testing status.


• Ensure the QA deliverables produced aligned to the test approach.


• Communicate the Product risk to the Product Owner, Scrum Master & Chapter Lead and highlight any mitigating factors.


• Ensure the defect management process is adhered to by the Software Quality & Test Engineers and where necessary chair the defect triage sessions.


• Participate in the retrospective reviews and seek efficiencies which will ensure quicker delivery with high quality to our client(s).


• Produce a closeout report and monitor product health in production for 2 weeks to ensure any issues are referenced in the report for completeness.


• Elicit business and Subject Matter Expert participation and input where necessary.


• Encourage Peer reviews of the QA artefacts.


• Understand and manage own demand based on expected timelines articulated by the line-management and project expectations.


• Collaborate with Peers and industry experts to understand technical advances and its application within the organization eco-system.


• Seek ongoing improvements in technical capabilities.


• Mentor the Engineers within the team to improve their technical capabilities.


• Responsible for performance management of direct reports (e.g. performance contracts, development plans, poor performance and improvement plans, and review).


• Ensure the team dynamics are healthy (coaching and mentoring, assist with decision making, encourage self-organization and assist with prioritization).


• Ensure direct reports' time sheets are created and signed off timeously.


• Responsible for resource capacity plan(s).


• Support the achievement of the business strategy, objectives and values.


• Stay abreast of developments in field of expertise.

Essential Qualifications - NQF Level

• Advanced Diplomas/National 1st Degrees

Preferred Qualification

• Agile certification and training in DevOps would be advantageous.

Essential Certifications

• ISTQB foundation or equivalent (ISEB)

Minimum Experience Level

• 2 or more years in a Lead role


• 6-8 years test automation experience




• Java


• Selenium


• API testing (RestAssured/Karate/SOAPUI)


• JMeter

Type of Exposure

• Experience in an Agile development environment using Scrum / Safe and/or Extreme / Pair Programming

Technical / Professional Knowledge

• Programming (OOP)


• Java Development with J2EE and/or Spring boot knowledge (Advanced)


• Automation testing using Selenium


• Use of repository systems i.e.: Azure Repos


• Testing of Services using automation tools such as Rest Assured (and SOAPUI).


• BDD and TDD


• Continuous Integration (CI) process with Jenkins or Azure Pipelines.


• Agile methodology and working in agile teams


• Use of Maven


• Use of Jira and Confluence


• Exposure to Cloud technology.


• Experience in building stubs.


• Experience in Service Virtualization

Behavioral Competencies

• Adaptability


• Decision Making


• Emotional Intelligence Essentials


• Technical/Professional Knowledge and Skills


• Influencing


• Quality Orientation


• Planning and Organizing


• High-Impact Communication

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