Executive Director, Software Engineering: Software Development Test (SDET)

NOTE: This position is based in Chicago, Illinois and is hybrid 3 days per week on site minimum. Only local candidates already based in the Chicagoland area will be considered for the role.

What You'll Do:

Define and drive enterprise-wide quality engineering strategy, standards and governance.  Lead adoption of modern engineering practices, metrics and compliance across all testing teams. Provide leadership in test automation, data driven quality reporting and risk-based validation while enabling alignment between product, dev, DevOps and testing teams. Establish governance forums, enforce quality policies and promote continuous improvement to enhance software delivery and reliability.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each primary duty satisfactorily.

• Define and own the enterprise QE governance framework, standards and policies

• Establish and enforce quality metrics, reporting and compliance across all testing teams.

• Align QE practices with regulatory, security and audit requirements.

• Drive adoption of automation, DevOps quality practices including quality gates and shift-left testing to improve quality and cycle time reduction.

• Provide leadership, input, and oversight to project delivery, risk management and release readiness.

• Collaborate with architecture, development, and business teams to provide cohesive integration plans

• Lead governance forums, steering committees and executive reviews. 

• Assist with driving consistency and standardization for process assurance across the development lifecycle (requirements management, development, functional and system test, release management etc.)

• Recommend, design, develop, and implement automation frameworks

• Oversee automation frameworks, systems for defect tracking, custom software and repositories.

• Develop and implement test data management and test environment management practices including appropriate tooling.

• Manage the integration of DevOps function, ensuring test environments are made available and are stable as needed

• Interact with Product Owners, Technology Leads, Project Managers, and Leadership Team members to embed quality in delivery, recommend solutions that best meet the strategic needs of the business

• Contribute to performance engineering practices by providing inputs on capacity planning, performance tuning, diagnostics, problem detection and resolution

• Manage project planning, including allocation of resources, assignment, and coordination

• Influence across organizational teams to create alignment and resolve conflicts

Supervisory Responsibilities:

Manages a team of people managers, individual contributors, and consultants/contractors

Qualifications:

The requirements listed are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the primary functions.

• Minimum ten (7) years’ experience with leading the design and set-up of test automation frameworks, processes, and tools

• Strong experience of QE methodologies, automation frameworks, DevOps and CI/CD.

• Experience with BDD methodologies & automated acceptance testing

• Experience with Agile development processes for enterprise software solutions

• Solid understanding of options and derivatives clearing and settlement business processes

• Experience with governance, compliance and regulatory standards in technology delivery.

• Proven ability to define and implement enterprise-wide quality standards and lead organization change.

• Ability to manage cross-functional governance forums.

• Strong background in metrics-driven quality reporting and risk-based decision making.

• Strong organizational leadership skills

• Ability to manage multiple, competing priorities and make decisions quickly

• Capability to support processes and development teams across a diversified group of business segments

• Knowledgeable about industry trends, best practices, and change management

• Strong communication skills with the ability to communicate and interact with a variety of internal/external customers, coworkers, and Executive Management

• Strong work ethic, hands-on, detail oriented with a customer service mentality

• Team player, self-driven, motivated, and able to work under pressure

• Results-oriented and demonstrated record of developing initiatives that