Chapter Lead - QA

We have an opportunity for an experienced Chapter Lead to refine and champion our QA best Practice and support the Chapter Members within our Data Tribe.  It's here we aim to continuously elevate the data and analytics capability to enable Admiral’s continued efforts to be a market leader in financial services. 

It is within our remit to create data products, services and opportunities for our business and our customers. We focus on simplicity, security, speed and significance in all that we do.​ Our mission is to deliver value in the form of efficient and effective data, tooling and decision-making processes for the Admiral Data community, to help drive value and service to Our customers and Our business. 

You will work within the Data Tribe comprised of Test Automation Engineers, Software Engineers, Data Analysts, Data Engineers, Cloud Engineers, Data Scientists, Squad Leads and Product Owners, working within the Google Cloud Platform, whose primary focus is to design and develop innovative technology solutions for a variety of internal stakeholders.  

About You

We are looking for an enthusiastic and curious individual, who can think creatively to solve problems and meet user requirements. You must have a keen interest in testing and quality assurance, applying shift-left, test-first principles with hands on experience of Leading Technical Test Teams who focus on automating testing, designing, and implementing testing automation frameworks. 

As we work within the Scaled Agile framework, we are looking for someone who can work both independently and as part of a team within a fast-paced and changing environment. This requires an individual who can deliver to agreed timelines, communicating effectively, and thinking innovatively.  

Experience of working in an integrated team, refining, and prioritising a backlog and delivering in an Agile methodology is a must. 

Job Purpose

The main responsibilities of a Chapter Lead are to build up the right capabilities in the technical people in the Tribe, equipping them with the skills, tools, and standard approaches to deliver functional excellence, and ensuring that they are focused on delivering value to the business. At the same time, we would expect the Chapter Lead to perform as a Quality Assurance Community of Practice Champion within their specific functional discipline within their designated Squad. A Chapter Lead is required to understand the Testing Framework, review pull requests and ensure squads deliver good quality code coverage. 

The Chapter Lead takes responsibility for the line management of the technical people within the tribes. 

Accountabilities

• Recruitment, development and retention of technical resources including career pathway development for all technical squad members.   
• Defining and setting compensation, benefits, and promotions for all members of the relevant Chapter.  
• Providing and applying effective performance management processes and mechanisms supporting squad leaders and product owners in increasing squad performance.    
• Providing an inclusive environment where Chapter members have freedom and safety to innovate, experiment, and learn from failure. 
• Owner and role model for applying the following values: productivity, quality, transparency, and openness into the Chapters ways of working and production of outcomes.   
• Providing open and effective communication channels leading to greater knowledge transfer within the Chapter.   
• Ensuring engineering, design and testing standards and practices comply with Admiral IT governance and architectural standards while performing in a heavily regulated environment.  

Responsibilities

• Providing line management duties for all Squad technical members within the relevant Chapter with a view to focussing on coaching and mentoring techniques that align to both agile principles and Admiral values.  
• Technical resource recruitment, retention, and overall onboarding process for all Squad level technical members of the relevant Chapter.  
• Supporting both personal and technical skills development for all Squad level technical members enabling greater Squad operational performance.  
• Providing effective career development for all Squad level technical members of the relevant Chapter.  
• Effectively administrating Chapter member’s compensation, benefits and promotion processes  
• Enabling Squads to meet their expected outcomes by supporting them in problem identification, root cause analysis, and decision-making.  
• Improving Squad performance by applying effective performance management controls leveraging input from relevant Squad Lead and Product Owners leading onto providing corrective actions when necessary.  
• Identifying, teaching, or championing the required software and hardware engineering skills needed to support the development of high-quality code, components, systems, and solutions. 
• Supporting all Chapter members in living the following values in everything they do: productivity, quality, transparency, and openness over internal politics.
• Serving as a senior coach and advisor to Agile Squads. Remaining close enough to the Squads to add value and to be a competent manager, while staying far enough away to let them problem-solve on their own .
• Supporting Squad Leads and Product Owners in knowledge transition between both Squads and the wider Organisation by applying clear and concise communication channels.

 Key Interactions

• Regular 1 to 1s with Chapter Squad level technical members. 
• At least annual performance reviews.
• Close relationship with Tribe leadership focussing on understanding the development needs of their people. 
• Participate in quarterly Portfolio Sync and weekly Portfolio checkpoint sessions and support teams by helping them remove systemic impediments. 
• Help protect teams from distractions and unrelated or unnecessary work. 
• Work with APMO to establish and monitor staffing needs. 

Knowledge and Experience Required

• Customer experience (CX) interaction and integration as part of software development process (can be through scrum/ lean agile or standard SDLC). 
• Line management through both coaching and mentoring techniques.  
• Scrum development practices, using associated tools for testing and continuous integration & deployment.
• Design & Implementation of Test Automation Frameworks following the Testing Pyramid. 
• Identification and management of specific engineering, design and testing standards and practices that comply with internal organisation IT governance and architectural standards while performing within a heavily regulated environment. 
• Use of tools such as: Jira, Confluence etc. 

Desirable Knowledge and Experience

• Testing of applications on Google Cloud Platform (or any major cloud platform) and awareness of serverless technologies.  
• Automated delivery of software though CICD with automated testing. 
• Understanding and implementing best practices for secure software development. 
• Deployment of applications on Kubernetes. 
• SQL and NoSQL database technologies.
• Test driven development in Java, Kotlin, Python or Javascript. 

Interview Process

There will be a two-stage interview process for this role (one 30-minute informal chat and if successful, a final one-hour formal interview).  Interviews will take place in August.

Location

For Hybrid workers (within a 50-mile radius of our Cardiff HQ) there is an expectation to work from the office twice a month (although we would encourage once a week if possible).  For remote workers (outside of a 50-mile radius of our Cardiff HQ) there is an expectation to attend the office a handful of times a year when required (i.e big meetings, workshops etc, although we would encourage once a month if possible).

Salary, Benefits, and Work-Life Balance

We do not have a set salary for this position, as it will be dependent on the successful candidate’s experience. We are happy to see CVs from all candidates who meet the requirements and will be happy to discuss the remuneration package.

At Admiral, we are proud to be a diverse business where we put our people and customers first. We have great benefits to ensure employees have a great work-life balance; it's one of the reasons we’re consistently voted one of the Sunday Times Best Big Companies to work for in the UK. We want you to have an element of freedom to define a working lifestyle that supports this, so accommodate flexible hours wherever possible.

All colleagues will receive 33 days holiday (including banks holidays) when they join us, and this will increase with length of service, up to a maximum of 38 days (including banks holidays). You also have the option to buy or sell up to five days of annual leave in addition to your allocation.

You can also view some of our other key benefits here.

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