Chapter Lead QA

The Admiral Group is a multinational financial services provider, where technology is key to our success. We have an opportunity for a Chapter Lead to refine and champion our QA best Practice and support the Chapter Members within our Customer Engagement tribe. The role is one of leadership; and both technical and people leadership skills are required. You will line manage a team of QA engineers ensuring that they have the skills required to be successful in their role, and that they find their role rewarding, empowering and satisfying.

About the team

You will be part of the Customer Engagement tribe, supporting individuals across several different delivery teams. Additionally, you will be part of the QA capability, which sits across all areas of technology at Admiral.

The Customer Engagement tribe work in many different areas, and we have QA engineers who focus on backend testing (APIs and data pipelines) frontend testing (Web UI, Conversational UI), and across products that we have built from the ground up and products where we have configured a SaaS service. The teams try to follow Agile principles and best practices to deliver high quality software, and we’re always open to suggestions on how we can get even better.

About You

We are looking for a passionate and experienced QA leader to inspire and guide a team of talented QA engineers spread across several software delivery teams. We’d love to find someone who enjoys empowering others to achieve outcomes, rather than someone who micro manages against numbers.

You must have a strong understanding of QA processes and methodologies, and the ability to manage, mentor and motivate your team, fostering a strong culture of quality and continuous improvement.

Accountabilities & Responsibilities

• Responsible for recruitment, development and retention of technical resources including career pathway development for all technical squad members. 
• Responsible for providing and applying effective performance management processes and mechanisms supporting other management structures of the delivery team.  
• Responsible for providing an inclusive environment where Chapter members have freedom and safety to innovate, experiment, and learn from failure.
• Responsible owner and role model for applying the following values: productivity, quality, transparency, and openness into the Chapters ways of working and production of outcomes. 
• Responsible for enabling delivery teams to meet their outcomes by supporting them in problem identification, root cause analysis, and decision-making.
• Responsible for serving as a senior coach and advisor to delivery teams. Remaining close enough to the teams to add value and to be a competent manager, while staying far enough away to let them problem-solve on their own.
• Accountable for ensuring engineering, design and testing standards and practices comply with Admiral IT governance and architectural standards while performing in a heavily regulated environment.
• Accountable for the continuous improvement of automated testing frameworks.
• Accountable for the professional growth of your team.

Essential Skills and Experience

• A vision for what a high performing QA function looks like, as well as for the individuals within that function.
• Proven ability to progress a team towards this vision.
• A strong understanding of agile processes and good familiarity with scrum and kanban frameworks.
• Experience of working collaboratively with other members of a leadership team to reach a shared objective.
• Experience working in a professional development framework, completing and recording regular check ins, semi regular one to ones, annual appraisals etc.

Desirable Skills and Experience

• Knowledge of telephony systems, contact centres or other domain specific knowledge.

Interview Process

This will be a 3 stage process which includes an online test, a 60 minute competency interview and a final chat with our Head of Capability.

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.  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).

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 bank 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.

For Hybrid workers (within a 50-mile radius of our Cardiff HQ) there is an expectation to work from the office twice a month.  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).

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

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