Lead Software Quality Analyst

IAT Insurance Group after has an immediate opening for a Lead Software Quality Analyst - an individual contributor as well as a lead role that coordinates the day-to-day tasks of an offshore QA Analyst team and updates stakeholders. This role works a hybrid schedule from an IAT office in Naperville, IL, Rolling Meadow, IL, or Raleigh, NC. Other locations will be considered for highly qualified candidates. Occasional travel may be required. This role will require working from the office Monday through Wednesday with the option of working remotely Thursday and Friday. 

The ideal candidate will have experience providing direction and leadership on work planning, test strategy, Impact analysis, test planning, Test Scenario Review and execution, Automation framework design and review, defect management, and test environment design.  P&C Insurance experience is strongly preferred.  The ideal candidate will participate in continuing to establish, refine and mature QA processes at IAT. This individual will be responsible for establishing process, methods, toolset and framework to support manual and automation testing for a large business transformation program using Duck Creek technologies. This includes working in an Agile Team environment developing and executing on a strategy to ensure test automation is effectively supporting the overall test strategy. Having knowledge and some experience in performance testing is an advantage for this role.

Responsibilities:  

• Develop high level test strategies based on epic definition and feature design that includes the strategies for manual and automated testing (incorporating component, functional, negative, regression, and end-to-end testing).
• Provide leadership around test techniques or methodologies to support complex or strategic direction for creation of the automation test suite environment.
• Provide leadership in the execution of manual and automated test scripts and validation of requirements.
• Works with Functional teams to understand how to reduce manual testing effort (regression).
• Works with development teams, requirements team and business implementation teams to understand the product, impact and produce a high quality systems product to the different insurance product lines at IAT Insurance Group.
• Understands applications, integration points and key business drivers.
• Manage the triage, prioritization, resolution, automation, and delivery of fixes for defects, including production defects.
• Leads the planning and execution of automation testing efforts, including all associated resources to meet committed delivery dates.
• Define and evangelize test best practices and designs, define and document QA principles and standards, including risk-driven prioritization.
• Coordinates and performs the evaluation of Software Test and Automation tools.
• Identifies opportunities and leverages automation techniques to automate business processes, data conversion and any other needs to support the business transformation program.
• Build credibility, authority, and trust. Promote transparency. Manage expectations and deliverables within the Agile framework. Represent the team effectively by keeping things realistic. Avoid slippage. Mitigate risk and propose course changes to deliver against commitments.
• Define automation related quality metrics to learn and adjust. Communicate metrics regularly to influence process improvements.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Qualifications:
Must have:

• Bachelor’s Degree and at least seven years of experience working as a Software Quality Analyst or Equivalent
• Equivalent experience is defined as eleven or more years of relevant work experience.
• Experience leading a team
• Extensive knowledge of automation test engineering methodologies including automation testing concepts, verification and validation techniques, defect management, quantitative methods, risk management and measurement programs.
• Proven experience in overseeing the design, development, and implementation of software testing solutions and software quality assurance best practices and methodologies
• Experience with JIRA and/or Confluence or other tracking tools that support Agile development
• Experience in Test management tools like Test Rail, PractiTets
• Experience working in an agile development environment.
• Experience working with geographically distributed team members.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong analytical, problem solving and planning ability. Detail oriented. Observational.
• Ability to multi-task to accomplish workload efficiently. Excellent time management.
• Good work ethic and general business ac