Director of Quality Assurance

Job Description Summary

We are seeking a seasoned and strategic Director of Quality Assurance (QA) to lead our QA organization across onshore and offshore teams. This role is pivotal in ensuring the delivery of high-quality, secure, and compliant software solutions in a fast-paced financial services environment, with a strong emphasis on trading systems. The ideal candidate will bring 10+ years of QA leadership experience, deep expertise in QA methodologies and SDLC, and a proven ability to scale quality practices across distributed teams.

Job Description

This position follows our hybrid-friendly schedule, so you get the best of both worlds – flexibility and collaboration. In office days will be 2-3 per week averaging 10-12 days per month in our St Petersburg, FL Corporate Office.

Please note: This role is not eligible for Work Visa sponsorship, either currently or in the future.

Responsibilities:
Leadership & Strategy:

• Define and execute the QA vision, strategy, and roadmap aligned with business and technology goals.

• Lead and mentor a large, geographically distributed team of QA professionals, including onshore and offshore resources.

• Foster a culture of quality, accountability, and continuous improvement across engineering teams.

Quality Engineering & Governance:

• Oversee the implementation of robust QA processes, frameworks, and tools across all stages of the SDLC.

•  Drive adoption of test automation, CI/CD, performance testing, and shift-left practices.

• Establish and monitor quality KPIs, metrics, and dashboards to ensure transparency and accountability.

Trading Systems & Financial Platforms:

• Ensure rigorous testing of trading platforms, order management systems (OMS), market data feeds, and related financial applications.

• Collaborate with trading, compliance, and infrastructure teams to validate system performance, latency, and reliability under real-world conditions.

• Maintain high standards for regulatory compliance, auditability, and risk mitigation in trading environments.

Collaboration & Delivery:

• Partner with Product, Development, and Compliance teams to ensure quality is embedded from ideation to release.

• Ensure timely and high-quality delivery of software releases, balancing speed with risk mitigation.

• Manage vendor relationships and offshore QA delivery models to optimize cost and performance.

Risk, Compliance & Audit:

• Ensure QA practices meet regulatory, security, and audit requirements specific to financial services.

• Maintain documentation and traceability for audit readiness and compliance reporting.

Experience:

• 10+ years of progressive experience in QA leadership roles, preferably in financial services or capital markets.

• Proven track record of managing large, distributed QA teams (onshore/offshore).

• Hands-on experience with trading systems and post-trade processing.

• Experience implementing enterprise-wide QA strategies.

Technical Skills:

• Deep understanding of QA methodologies, SDLC, Agile/Scrum, DevOps, and CI/CD pipelines.

• Experience with test automation tools (e.g., Selenium, Cypress), performance testing (e.g., JMeter), and test management platforms.

• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure), APIs, microservices, and modern software architecture.

Soft Skills:

• Strong leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.

• Ability to influence cross-functional teams and drive changes in a matrixed environment.

• Strategic thinker with a hands-on approach to problem-solving.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with regulatory frameworks such as SOX, SEC/FINRA.

• Certifications such as ISTQB, CSTE, or PMP are a plus.

Education

Bachelor’s: Computer and Information Science, High School (HS) (Required)

Work Experience

General Experience - More than 15 years

Certifications

Travel

Less than 25%

Workstyle

Hybrid

At Raymond James our associates use five guiding behaviors (Develop, Collaborate, Decide, Deliver, Improve) to deliver on the firm's core values of client-first, integrity, independence and a conservative, long-term view. 

We expect our associates at all levels to:
•  Grow professionally and insp