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 the 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.

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

• Accountable for recruitment, development and retention of technical resources including career pathway development for all technical squad members.  
• Accountable for defining and setting compensation, benefits, and promotions for all members of the relevant Chapter.
• Accountable for providing and applying effective performance management processes and mechanisms supporting squad leaders and product owners in increasing squad performance.  
• Accountable for 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.  
• Accountable for providing open and effective communication channels leading to greater knowledge transfer within the Chapter. 
• 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.

Responsibilities

• Responsible for 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.
• Responsible for technical resource recruitment, retention, and overall onboarding process for all Squad level technical members of the relevant Chapter.
• Responsible for supporting both personal and technical skills development for all Squad level technical members enabling greater Squad operational performance.
• Responsible for providing effective career development for all Squad level technical members of the relevant Chapter.
• Responsible for effectively administrating Chapter member’s compensation, benefits and promotion processes.
• Responsible for enabling Squads to meet their expected outcomes by supporting them in problem identification, root cause analysis, and decision-making.
• Responsible for 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.
• Responsible for identifying, teaching, or championing the required software and hardware engineering skills needed to support the development of high-quality code, components, systems, and solutions.
• Responsible for supporting all Chapter members in living the following values in everything they do: productivity, quality, transparency, and openness over internal politics.
• Responsible for 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.
• Responsible for 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 Azure Cloud (or any major cloud platform).
• Experience of policy handling systems and value streams.
• Automated delivery of software though CI/CD with automated testing.
• Understanding and implementing best practices for secure software development.
• Deployment of applications on Kubernetes.
• SQL database technologies.
• Test Automation development in Java, Kotlin, Python or JavaScript.

Interview Process:

There will be 2 stages to this interview process over Microsoft Teams.

Admiral: Where You Can

We take pride in being a diverse and inclusive business. It's a place where you can Be You, and show up as you are. We’re committed to fostering a people-first culture where everyone is accepted, supported, and empowered to be brilliant. You can, Grow And Progress at a pace and direction that suits you, Make A Difference for our customers and each other, and Share in Our Future with all colleagues eligible for up to £3,600 of free shares each year after one year of service.

Everyone receives 33 days holiday (including bank holidays) when they join us, increasing the longer you stay with us, up to a maximum of 38 days (including bank holidays). You also have the option to buy or sell up to an additional five days of annual leave.

We’re proud of our people-first culture. In fact, we've been recognised as a Great Place to Work for Women, a Great Place to Work for Wellbeing, and an overall Great Place to Work for over 25 years! We’re fully committed to making sure your progression is not slowed or halted by barriers related to race, gender, age, sexuality or any of the protected characteristics.

Our fantastic benefits make sure our colleagues have a great work-life balance; You can view some of our other key benefits here.