The QA Manager is an IT professional who is responsible for the recruitment and talent development of staff; leads by empowering testing teams, ensuring on time quality delivery of supported software implementations for vendor and internally developed software products. The QA Manager will partner with BCBSAZ management and business customers to determine effective methods of test planning and execution for product releases, large project deployments and incremental changes to software products. They will also partner with business and development teams to ensure testing traceability is accounted for throughout the SDLC; and that teams comply with QA policies and best practices.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Required Work Experience
• 2 years of experience managing test teams and the necessary technical solutions and tools required to produce quality software deliverables to meet business needs
• 2 years of experience with executing testing best practices supporting batch, real-time, and online system solutions
• 2 years of experience collaborating with business leaders in support of large software implementations.

Required Education

• Bachelor's degree in business, information technology, computer systems, or related field

Required Licenses

• N/A

• N/A

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 3 years of IT management experience with demonstrated leadership responsibilities and direct people management
• 3 years of experience managing test teams and the necessary technical solutions and tools required to produce quality software deliverables to meet business needs
• 3 years of experience with executing testing best practices supporting batch, real-time, and online system solutions

• 3 years of experience collaborating with business leaders in support of large software implementations.

Preferred Education

• Master's Degree in business, computer science or related field

Preferred Licenses

• N/A

Preferred Certifications

• Project Management Professional Certification
• Certified Scrum Master Certification
• Technical certifications in software and systems testing

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Oversee day-to-day departmental administration by coaching and motivating staff and departmental personnel to make maximum use of experience and skills; developing a culture of trust, accountability, teamwork, high quality results and continuous improvement and optimizing teams roles and responsibilities
• Manage teams in a remote/work from home environment
• Act as the single point of contact (SPOC) for the team including FTE' s and contractors on and offshore.
• Assist in the planning and implementation and improvement of the overall policies and goals for the organization's strategy for testing related solutions.
• Develop staff, including development and maintenance of training materials for new and existing staff, establishing performance goals, regular follow up with staff and year-end performance evaluations.
• Review relevant operating policies to ensure that the most efficient processes are in place and determine tactical plans to improve processes and services that can be streamlined and/or improved.
• Take ownership of providing status updates and reporting to management and/or business partners as appropriate. Identify opportunities to achieve administrative efficiencies while maintaining service.
• Ensure re-use of existing test artifacts, solutions and tooling wherever possible to ensure new test approaches are implemented in a cost-efficient manner and meet service quality.
• Develop timelines, work estimates, cost projections, capacity models, and manage team work to approved guidelines; review and consult on approach of test efforts to ensure consistency.
• Demonstrate leadership abilities along with good judgment and decision-making skills.
• Provide leadership and guidance to coach, motivate, and lead team members to their optimum performance levels and career development.
• Hire and coach employees. Manage individual performance objectives and yearly reviews. Develop and maintain high performing teams that provide quality and timely delivery of business objectives.
• Provide recognition and corrective feedback to employees regularly
• Responsible to facilitate and ensure a positive employee experience in the onboarding, engagement and development of new team members in a manner that provides guidance, inspiration and accountability.
• Provide leadership and mentoring to team members on behaviors, processes and techniques required to successfully deliver value to the organization. Remove impediments, manage risks and resolve other issues relating to technical roadblocks or personnel issues
• Accountable for budget oversight and software licensing management.
• Develop goals and monthly scorecard with KPI metrics to be used for measuring team success and ensure compliance, and report on those metrics
• Provide oversight and governance over team deliverables and assets to ensure compliance with policies and procedures
• Responsible for identifying and leading QA & Testing best practices, process improvements, and seeking continuous improvement across teams.
• Maintain relationships across the organization to ensure alignment of goals and consistency of practices, processes and timelines.
• Participate in project discovery and portfolio management for demand and capacity planning
• Validate that appropriate test coverage is being planned for in-scope activities
• Implement consistent use of standard testing tools, and continue to optimize tool setup based on lessons learned from projects
• Collaborate with application development and testing teams to understand project interdependency
• Provide cost estimates and/or benefit analysis in support of test efforts.
• Partner with Development and Vendors teams to ensure requirement traceability of functional and system integration testing
• Other duties as assigned

REQUIRED COMPETENCIES

Required Job Skills

• Expert technical skills related to analysis and design of test plans and approaches
• Demonstrated ability to drive change and influence stakeholders at leadership level
• Deep understanding of the Software Development Life-Cycle and associated processes
• Extensive experience of leading large teams with a track record of mentoring and growing junior team members
• Strong management capabilities to drive demand and capacity planning, budgeting and cost tracking
• Demonstrated ability to identify and mitigate Risks and Issues related to Testing
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, and a problem-solving mindset
• Demonstrated ability to develop and maintain Requirements Traceability Matrix
• Foundational understanding of Project Management processes
• Foundational understanding of key enterprise systems
• Foundational understanding of testing processes within Agile delivery models
• Robust experience and knowledge in current test validation and verification approaches and methodologies
• Advanced knowledge and experience with application technologies implemented within delivery organization
• The ability to work well in a team environment, and be capable of building and maintaining positive relationships with other staff, departments, and customers.
• Strong leadership, collaboration, and influencing skills are required. Must have the ability to persuade and build consensus cross-functionally as an evangelist in a team oriented fashion.
• Knowledge and experience with application technologies implemented within delivery organization.
• Experience and knowledge in current technical architectures.
• Strong understanding of the projects and issues the teams is involved in and ensure communication of critical successes, issues and incidents to leadership.
• Intermediate PC proficiency

Required Professional Competencies

• Ability to take appropriate risks, using available data.
• Ability to build synergy with a diverse team in an ever-changing environment
• Anticipate upstream & downstream needs and steer architectural designs to appropriately factor in considerations.
• Strong analytical skills to support independent and effective decisions.
• Strong verbal and written communications skills and the ability to interact professionally with a diverse group of executives, managers, and subject matter experts.
• Highly skilled at designing and implementing multiple tier architecture solutions, developing high-performance and secure systems and system integration
• Work effectively with management, product owners, scrum masters, business analysts, developers, technical leader, architects, system administrators, and testers, design, and deliver successful software solutions.
• Able to operate at varying levels of abstraction including business and product strategy, design, and implementation
• Experience managing teams in a remote/work from home environment
• Strong knowledge of MS Azure DevOps
• Experience with various communication platforms to include MS Teams, Zoom, etc.

Required Leadership Experience and Competencies

• Provide leadership, promote teamwork, meet objectives and exercise independent judgment
• Experience leading and implementing projects and working collaboratively with other departments levels
• Ability to prioritize tasks and work with multiple priorities, sometimes under limited time constraints.

PREFERRED COMPETENCIES

• Knowledge and understanding of Agile practices and application development practices.

Preferred Professional Competencies

• Demonstrate flexibility, anticipate customer needs and effectively communicate in a timely manner consistent with the business strategy.
• Advanced tactical planning and decision analysis skills.
• Able to cope with multiple priorities and high customer expectations and bridge the demands between internal and external customers.
• Advanced understanding of information systems, business processes and key drivers and measures fo success.
• Advanced analytical and diagnostic skills dealing with issues that are often novel and not readily defined, lack known precedent or appear contradictory.
• Develop solutions by applying accepted processes or create new approaches to leverage technology from abstract information.
• Advanced understanding of HIPAA transactions and privacy requirements.
• Presentation and public speaking abilities.
• Development and application of budgeting concepts, processes and procedures.
• Interpret medical, legal and technical data, including state and federal regulations and their effect on operations.
• Conceptualize new business architecture and infrastructure.

Preferred Leadership Experience and Competencies

• Identify resources and training needs while fostering opportunities for staff growth Promote and supports the overall quality principles and company quality program.
• Empower associates at all levels and encourage innovation and risk taking.
• Develop an enthusiastic and positive work environment with positive impact to employee engagement
• Negotiation and influencing skills with the ability to create win/win situations.
• Resource management skills.