Chapter Lead - QA

We have an opportunity here at Admiral for an experienced Chapter Lead to refine and champion our QA best Practice and to support the Chapter Members within our Corporate Services Tribe.

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.

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.
• Accountable 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

• Extensive knowledge of customer experience (CX) interaction and integration as part of software development process (can be through scrum/ lean agile or standard SDLC).
• Extensive knowledge and experience with Line management through both coaching and mentoring techniques.
• Knowledge and experience in Scrum development practices, using associated tools for testing and continuous integration & deployment.
• Knowledge and experience with design & Implementation of Test Automation Frameworks following the Testing Pyramid.
• Knowledge of 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.
• Knowledge and experience in the 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.

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).

Interview Process

This will be a two-stage process, involving two competency-based interviews via MS Teams. There will also be a final chat with our Chief Engineer if successful at the initial two stages.

Benefits and Work-Life Balance

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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