Director of Software Quality Assurance Job in Not Specified, California US
Director of Software Quality Assurance
Kaiser Permanente seeks a Director of Software Quality Assurance to provide leadership for all integration, system and regression testing for our Contact Center, Benefit, Product and Sales platforms. This area will also lead the Health Plan Testing Services automation engineering efforts. This Director will manage a team of approximately 20 staff and 50 contractors and is responsible for the development of the staff within their span of control. Direct reports include two managers. ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS: - Leads management and SQA staff in supporting health insurance and contact center software testing (including SOA systems) with software quality assurance activities (i.e. system, regression, integration, performance, scalability) utilizing external vendors and internal staff including supervising the execution of test scripts, reviewing test results and managing the defect resolution process - Utilizes software quality assurance and project management tools for reporting on test results and milestones throughout the project test stages - Leads strategic direction and drives the utilization of test automation frameworks within the Health Plan Testing Services Organization - Works with IT business partners and customers to facilitate go/no-go decisions on key initiatives - Conducts test plan review meetings with project stakeholders and coordinates defect resolution activities to meet project deadlines - Directs managers and highly technical individual contributors toward continual process improvements to increase quality throughout the delivery lifecycle - Provides reporting of quality metrics throughout the test phase of all projects - Manages external vendor delivery of services to ensure adherence to contract. - Manages and monitors metrics to ensure SLA of delivery - Manages HR/People processes for their organizational area including performance /management, resource management, compensation administration, objective setting/alignment, employee development/coaching and training. Qualifications: BASIC QUALIFICATIONS - Bachelor's degree or 4 years of equivalent work experience. - A minimum of 8 years of progressive IT experience in roles of increasing responsibility; expertise in complex, large project implementations across various business units and regions. - Eight or more years leading, managing, recruiting, retaining and developing technical SQA staff and/or automation engineers - 5 years experience leading agile (SCRUM) software quality assurance teams - Ability to provide software quality assurance services across a multitude of technology platforms, e.g., mainframe, distributed, web and services oriented infrastructure - A strong and proven IT business leader who understands and leads technology's application for driving real business value. - A track record of solid leadership experience and background in negotiating commitments to achieve long-term partnerships including extensive system integrator/vendor experience, a broad understanding of the software delivery processing including IT financial planning and budgeting experience, and understanding of the healthcare/plan industries. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS - Masters Degree in Computer Science or related field - Demonstrated knowledge of software engineering principles and practices (e.g. RUP, ITIL, TQM, ISO, SIX SIGMA and CMM/I) - Knowledge of CMM/I process improvement methodology, test management principles and practices - Strategic business management and organizational planning skills, short-and long-term operations planning skills, skill in examining and re-engineering operations and procedures, formulating policy, and developing and implementing new strategies and procedures - Strong leadership, management and negotiation skills - Ability to build relationships, and foster a cooperative work environment with a wide range of constituencies in a diverse community, ability to build consensus and to work through others in achieving desired results and objectives - Good verbal and written communication, interpersonal, analytical, decision-making, problem solving, project management, negotiation, customer service. - Proven experience in developing and working with offshore vendors in providing automation development, testing services and resource management - Consistent ability to set and deliver against a work plan in a fast-paced environment, with high attention to detail even under high-pressure situations