Head of Engineering & AI
Location: Remote with travel to office or client site as requested.
QA, Test Automation, Test Management, Cloud, CI/CD, AI, Operations Manager, Leadership
Job Purpose
As the Head of Engineering & AI you’ll lead a team of Product Manager, QA Engineers and Developers within your team to drive efforts to deliver our Engineering products, automation test services & solutions, that will support our services, our clients, and their associated projects. You will be the owner of our engineering and automation related services & products.
You will be working with QA engineers to define and guide automation best practice and methodologies, support and mentor QA Engineers working at client sites, to formulate automation test strategies and keep our automated testing solutions up to date, utilising the coding efforts of the team.
You will work with our developers to plan, design, and develop products and enhancements to our product set, along with defining the ongoing product roadmaps.
You will keep up to date with the latest technologies and ensure the proof-of-concept environments, and demo environments are built and maintained. You will also assist with demonstrating the benefits of automation to our clients.
You will build business cases and lead on automation business development and sales activities, assisting with bids and sales activities, and assisting with demonstrations to secure new clients.
You will build partnerships with tool providers, building strong relationships and partnership agreements to ensure cost and support offers the best value and service to our clients.
You will be the driver and lead on all things automation and product development related.
Key Responsibilities
Leadership
▪ Provide leadership and technical expertise within Engineering, Test Automation and Quality Assurance.
▪ You will manage and support the QA Automation Engineers and developers placed within client sites and remote developers
▪ Cultivate a culture of innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement within the team.
▪ You will support automation framework and product development activities, highlighting resource requirements against development plans
▪ You will be the point of escalation for our Automation Services and QA Engineers and Development resource
▪ You will keep QA best practice standards up to date, along with supporting documentation for service support, onboarding, and maintenance.
▪ Manage training and continuous learning of QA staff by means of short courses, conferences, meetups, certifications, etc.
▪ Be an escalation point for all matters related to testing and quality assurance automation and products and operate as a primary point of contact for the QA teams.
▪ Provide technical expertise in Test Automation, Testing Methodologies, Testing Processes, Tools, and Techniques across the teams and our clients.
QA Engineering & Automation Services
▪ Be accountable for the test automation projects, mentor, and provide leadership to the QA automation developers and Leads.
▪ You will design and define the automation service frameworks and associated policies, processes, and work instructions.
▪ You will create and maintain template automation deliverables to support the Automation Services. For example, Automation Test Strategy, Automation Test Reports.
▪ Where required, you will write and execute automated tests to support projects, driving confidence in software releases.
▪ Ensure the proper usage of available tools to gain the maximum benefit of the QA effort. This includes testing tools for functional, performance, automation, etc.
▪ You will create and maintain automation business case proposals to demonstrate the benefits of automation to our clients.
▪ You will support our Test Automation assessment services, following our defined service processes, and enhance them where required.
Automation Frameworks & Products
▪ You are responsible for the design, build and enhancement to the Automation Frameworks and products, collaborating with our delivery teams to enhance and prioritise our product roadmaps.
▪ In collaboration with other QA Engineers, you will be responsible for ensuring our frameworks are well scoped, monitored and documented and is managed through the Azure DevOps and Github repositories.
▪ You will provide test automation capability through a combination of SCA, UI, API, Performance, Accessibility and Compatibility testing.
▪ You will identify and implement automation capability across a pipeline CI/CD landscape, incorporating other non-functional test capability such as performance, accessibility, security etc.
Product R&D
▪ You will be the owner of our Engineering product set, planning and managing enhancements with the team.
▪ Focus on continuous QA improvements including usage of appropriate testing tools, test techniques, test automation and AI
▪ You will provide insights with the latest approaches to automation, tooling and AI and be given the opportunity to improve and update the automation framework and product stack as appropriate.
▪ You will design and maintain our proof of concept/demo environment and demo applications in order to showcase our automation and product capabilities.
▪ Keep our automation and service documentation (confluence) up to date at all times.
Business Development
▪ Focus on building of key tool partnerships, building strong relationships and securing preferential rates and support arrangements
▪ Build standard sales packs and associated business case templates to emphasise the importance and benefits of automation for our clients
▪ Provide automation expertise and input into client bids, pilots and planned demos.
▪ Identify opportunities for automation services within existing and new clients.
Key Skills and Experience
Leadership
▪ 5-7 years’ experience of leading automation experts, QA engineers and developers
▪ Strong strategic thinking and problem-solving skills, with the ability to translate business requirements into actionable automation and AI strategies.
▪ Experience of leading onshore and offshore resources.
▪ Building product roadmaps
▪ Be able to scope, plan and manage the delivery technical projects
▪ Building Automation test strategies.
▪ Build collaborative relationships with the organisation, with clients and 3rd party partners/suppliers.
▪ Provide detailed reports to senior management teams and clients.
Technical
▪ Be able to describe a range of delivery methodologies and understand the impact on automation and product designs
▪ Experience of implementing AI and evaluating AI solutions within the QA landscape
▪ Designed and built automation frameworks on a range of technology and toolsets covering Unit, API, UI level automation, including but not limited to – Selenium, Playwright, Appium, Cypress, Playwright, Postman, Rest Assured, Jmeter, BrowserStack, Saucelabs (or similar).
▪ Experience of coding within React, Java and .Net environments
▪ Experience of codeless automation tools, and ERP tool extensions (e.g. ATF in ServiceNow)
▪ Knowledge of automation solutions for non-functional phases of testing such as Accessibility, Performance, and Security.
▪ 5+ years’ experience with providing automation solutions within a CI/CD environment
▪ 3-5 years’ experience of implementing automation across Cloud based pipelines and implementations such as Azure and AWS.
Personal Qualities
▪ Visionary Leadership: The ability to inspire and motivate others with a clear vision for automation and AI initiatives, as well as the foresight to anticipate future technological trends and opportunities.
▪ Innovative Thinking: A creative mindset with a passion for exploring new ideas and pushing the boundaries of what's possible with automation and AI technologies.
▪ Adaptability: The flexibility to adapt to changing priorities, emerging technologies, and evolving business needs in a dynamic and fast-paced environment.
▪ Collaborative Approach: A collaborative and inclusive leadership style that fosters teamwork, open communication, and knowledge sharing among cross-functional teams.
▪ Resilience: The ability to remain resilient and composed under pressure, especially when facing challenges or setbacks.
▪ Ethical Consideration: A commitment to ethical principles, with a focus on promoting fairness, transparency, and accountability.
▪ Effective Communication: and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to engage and influence senior executives and cross-functional teams.
Qualifications
▪ Degree in computer science, engineering, or a related field preferred