SCOPE OF SERVICES AND WORK
· Ensuring that adopted engineering standards remain effective within the capability, leading the continuous quality improvement or standards and processes within the capability and the wider quality practice.
· Responsible for Quality Assurance and testing hands on if required.
· Responsible for ensuring that best practice quality standards are followed by regular auditing, review of engineering activities and key quality artefacts; peer reviews; problem management and root cause analysis; readiness reviews; post-implementation reviews.
· Responsible for the introduction of testing policies, testing strategy, testing standards and procedures by actively engaging with stakeholders;
· Responsible for developing the testing strategies for given initiatives.
· Responsible for reviewing and approving test plans and test cases, ensuring alignment with appropriate standards.
· Responsible for ensuring that the team successfully manages all product risks, managing any problems that arise in line with quality expectations of stakeholders.
Responsible for managing the capability QA operational budget via effective resource management and sourcing strategy.
DELIVERABLES
The QA Lead shall be required to provide deliverables as specified in the above section “Scope of Services and Work”.
· Requirements & Analysis:
o Collaborates on Platform Tasks and User Stories: Works with Platform Owners, Engineers, and Business Analysts to clarify requirements related to data centre hardware, HQ office devices, resident (branch) office setups, AV solutions, and cloud services (e.g. Azure, other PaaS). Ensures acceptance criteria are clear, testable, and aligned with operational needs.
o Risk Identification: Spots potential functional or configuration risks early—for example, hardware compatibility in the data centre or network requirements for a cloud-based application—and raises them with the team for mitigation.
· Test Planning & Strategy
o Defines Basic Test Approach: Contributes to planning test coverage for platform-related features and infrastructure changes (e.g. new server deployments, cloud resource upgrades, AV integrations). Distinguishes which checks can be manual and which might benefit from basic automation.
o Effort Estimation: Provides test-effort estimates for tasks such as validating network configurations, AV device setups, or cloud resource provisioning. Supports sprint planning by clarifying how these tasks fit into overall timelines.
o Environment Coordination: Liaises with DevOps and Infrastructure teams to ensure you have appropriate test environments—this could mean on-premises labs with hardware replicas, cloud-based test subscriptions (e.g. Azure sandbox), or office spaces for AV setups.
· Test Design & Execution
o Create Test Scenarios: Translates platform acceptance criteria into clear test cases, covering both basic functional aspects (e.g. verifying a new server’s configuration, confirming an AV system’s audio/video quality) and simple non-functional checks (e.g. response times under light load).
o Manual Testing: Performs exploratory tests on newly provisioned platforms—such as verifying that a new virtual machine in Azure meets resource specifications or ensuring resident office routers are properly configured. Documents findings and logs meticulously.
o Introductory Automation: Collaborates with more senior QEs and DevOps engineers to build or maintain simple automated checks (e.g. infrastructure-as-code validations, basic scripts for verifying cloud resource states). Collaboration & Agile Ceremonies
o Sprint Events: Actively participates in sprint planning, daily stand-ups, backlog refinement, and retrospectives. Share updates on tested platform features—like a newly installed server cluster or a batch of AV endpoints—and highlights any roadblocks.
o Stakeholder Review: Demonstrates tested infrastructure changes in sprint reviews. For example, show how a newly deployed cloud resource (PaaS database) was verified for correct configuration or how an AV system’s functionality aligns with user requirements.
· Defect Management:
o Identify & Report Issues: Logs defects in the tracking system—such as misconfigured network ports, issues with firmware updates, or unexpected behaviour in cloud deployments. Clearly documents evidence (screenshots, logs) for swift triage.
o Defect Collaboration: Works closely with platform engineers and DevOps teams to clarify issues, prioritise them according to impact, and retest fixes—whether it’s a data centre patch or a bug in a PaaS environment.
· Continuous Improvement & Quality Advocacy
o Promotes Best Practices: Encourages a culture where testing is integrated early in the platform lifecycle—e.g. advocating for peer reviews on infrastructure-as-code scripts or participating in AV device pilot tests before wide-scale rollout.
o Early Involvement: Collaborates with engineers during design phases, providing feedback on potential testability concerns—like lacking monitoring for a new resident office solution or insufficient logs for diagnosing HQ network issues.
· Data Analysis & Reporting
o Metrics Tracking: Keeps basic metrics on test coverage, defect trends, and platform health indicators (e.g. uptime tests, basic performance checks). Shares these insights with the team to guide improvements.
o Incident Logging & Support: Supports incident investigations by providing logs or test outcomes from data centre, cloud, or AV checks. Contributes observations on possible root causes, drawing on your testing evidence.
· Technical & Domain Expertise
o Growing Platform Knowledge: Builds foundational knowledge of data centre operations (power, cooling, rack configurations), networking principles, AV system basics, and cloud resource management (Azure, PaaS). Seeks mentorship from senior platform engineers and QEs to deepen expertise.
o Tool & Framework Proficiency: Learns and practices using relevant testing tools—ranging from simple script automation for infrastructure checks to basic container or AV testing frameworks. Remains open to adopting new techniques as the platform evolves.
· Mentorship & Knowledge Sharing
o Documentation & Training: Maintains clear, concise documentation on platform testing procedures, known issues, and test environments (e.g. how to access a certain Azure test subscription or the location of an AV test kit in HQ).
· ITSM & Service Continuity
o Process Familiarity: Understands basic ITSM processes (incident, problem, change, and knowledge management) relevant to platform engineering—whether an on-premise data centre request or a cloud provisioning change.
o Continuity Awareness: Contributes to service continuity efforts by testing backup or failover scenarios (e.g. failover tests in Azure, power redundancy checks in data centres). Escalates any concerns around readiness for major incidents (e.g. disaster recovery at a resident office).
EXPECTED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
Essential
· Experience working in a multi-vendor partnership environment and determining the quality standards that they adhere to.
· Experience in test management on teams using both Agile and traditional delivery methods and tools.
· Experience leading a testing team conducting both functional testing and non-functional testing
· An operational mind-set with the ability to view change from various perspectives: Customer, service, security, performance, and IT operations.
· Systems thinking, capable of identifying single-points-of-failure.
· Broad IT infrastructure experience across: Hardware (compute, storage, network); Virtualisation; Software-defined-Networking; Software-defined-Storage; Public cloud; Containerisation.
· An understanding of IT operations in an ITSM context (ideally ITIL qualified to at least foundation-level).
· Broad understanding of software development principles and associated SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) tooling.
· Experience leading engineers implementing test tooling and test automation.
· Strong written and spoken English with an understanding of the importance of documentation.
Desirable Skills:
· Experience using Microsoft Azure DevOps (ADO).
· Experience implementing CI/CD tooling.
· Experience supporting the implementation of ADO pipelines and provisioning infrastructure-as-code through tools such as HashiCorp Terraform.
· ISEB / ISTQB certified.
· Stay current with the latest tools, and methodologies.
· Knowledge and experience of API testing using tools like Postman.
· Knowledge of mocks and stubs in testing.
· Bachelor’s degree in related discipline such as Computer Science/Engineering is desirable but not essential.
· IT Skills
Process Skills:
· Experience working in an Agile/Scrum delivery team environment with in-depth knowledge of the full testing life cycle.
· Experience using Jira Agile management tool.
REPORTING AND DELIVERABLES
Responsible for deliverables across PE capability.