Test and Assurance Lead

Job description

Job responsibilities

In this role, you are accountable for: Specialist Skills 1. Provide test and assurance expertise and consultation across DDaT in a wide range of test areas and technologies including, but not limited to:a. Functional integration acceptance testing (including UI, API and database)b. Accessibility testingc. Compatibility testingd. Performance testinge. Security test techniquesf. Data processing testingg. Data migration validation2. Provide test and assurance expertise in a range of contemporary technologies including Cloud platforms, open source and aaS services to better enable and enhance the delivery of test and assurance services.3. Support a cluster of test and assurance teams across different DDaT delivered services to achieve efficient delivery of quality outcomes, helping to resolve issues when they arise and promoting the advantages of both functional and non-functional testing throughout.4. Mentor and coach the DDaT test and assurance community, helping to develop quality assurance processes and testing standards from a strategic and technical perspective.5. Responsible for supporting the implementation of the long-term testing strategy. Using own initiative to interpret NHSBSA DDaT requirements and advising the wider NHSBSA on its implementation.6. Evaluate, analyse, and interpret highly complex information and requirements to inform the appropriateness of test strategies and approaches, and the design and development of robust test techniques such as scalable test automation frameworks.7. Innovate and horizon scan within the DDaT Test profession to ensure the NHSBSA DDaT and its Test community is kept abreast of the latest technological developments and advances in software testing. Plan and implement where possible to support innovative and creative delivery of Testing.8. Collaborate and share good practice and test expertise through assurance and review activities, leading workshops and demonstrations, and ensuring the Test Community of Practice adopts agreed standards, best practices and techniques.9. Work with testers from a multitude of backgrounds including internal and 3rd party external supplier teams, assuring their work and managing the testing activities.10. Ensure governance of quality controls and test practices are followed through the use and implementation of assurance processes such as code, peer and release reviews to ensure quality code is being delivered into the test environments and beyond. Ensure test practices follow a risk-based approach within the agreed risk appetite.11. Communicate complex information effectively across a wide range of people and levels of understanding, including both technical and non-technical audiences, to influence, negotiate and secure value-based solutions and outcomes and sign off ahead of delivery of services.12. Promote and raise exposure of the NHSBSA and the DDaT Test Profession at external conferences and events.13. Share programme and DDaT level risks and issues within software testing across multiple services and raise through appropriate channels.14. Analyse new developments and changes to existing services, ensuring requirements are testable and the appropriate test coverage is being applied.

Knowledge Management 15. Maintain own knowledge and expertise in test and assurance. Identify, investigate and champion the application of emerging technologies, test techniques and approaches within software testing and assurance.16. Identify and support opportunities for teams to develop their skills to meet the changing needs of the business. Take ownership for decision making within your cluster and specialist area, seeking support and feedback to develop well thought out solutions, processes and work as required, and in conjunction with agreed procedures.17. Take an active, lead role in your professional development. Keep up to date with the latest technologies and software testing standards and best practice, through self-directed and NHSBSA organised learning activities.18. Maintain an excellent understanding of the use of technology in delivering business objectives, especially those required for delivering complex, large scale technical solutions.Relationship Management 19. Identify opportunities, engaging and fostering relationships and partnership working within the organisation, third parties and cross government organisations to identify, influence and deliver value to the organisation.20. Working collaboratively with respective People Managers, professions and Professional Leads and Delivery Managers to identify, implement and support team and individual development.21. Effectively engage and collaborate across multiple disciplines to ensure consistent approaches, methods, standards, and patterns are holistically applied to meet test and assurance technical goals and objectives.22. Deputise for the Profession Lead for Testing and/or Principal Test and Assurance Lead as required.

Information Management 23. Implement, monitor and report on test progress and areas including agreed quality standards, service levels, KPI's and standards within team.24. Support and maintain confidentiality, integrity and availability of information systems through assurance of compliance with relevant legislation and regulations.

Delivery Management 25. Completing own assigned tasks, to a high quality and within agreed timelines. Delivering continuous improvements to enhance own and business areas; co-ordinating and delivery of work across multiple strands such as continuous improvement, project related work, and operational tasks, and escalating issues at appropriate times.26. Prepare and review test and assurance plans to enable the delivery and management of projects and programmes undertaken by the team. Providing specialist and operational direction in the preparation of plans to deliver systems and service across the organisation.27. Take responsibility for the practical implementation of service and application testing through assurance and review of test team activities and/or 3rd party test activities, ensuring it complements the DDaT and wider NHSBSA strategy and agenda, and meets business objectives within budget.28. Provide feedback on functional and non-functional requirements and acceptance criteria to create standardisation across services and within the Test Community.29. Participate in procurement processes for hardware and software, including testing tools.30. Proactively identify risks and other significant delivery challenges and provide mitigation advice.

Staff Management 31. Supporting the development and performance of others to meet and develop their professional objectives.32. Conduct meaningful appraisals and 1-1s, working with the People Managers to identify and meet development needs, implementing, monitoring, evaluating and reporting on the impact and success of learning and development plans.33. Collaborate with People Manager and delivery colleagues to undertake recruitment and selection in line with organisational processes.34. Share feedback to support and encourage teams and individuals to develop thinking and independently work through issues, to reach solutions-based outcomes. Leading by example by seeking, providing and implementing individual feedback to improve ways of working and own performance.35. Mentor and coach other team members, including apprentices, to enable the on-going technical development and grow of skills with the team.

In addition to the above accountabilities, as post holder you are expected to: 1. Undertake additional duties and responsibilities in line with the purpose of your role and as agreed by your line manager.2. Demonstrate NHSBSA values and core capabilities in all aspects of your work.3. Foster an environment where your own and colleagues safety and well-being is promoted.4. Contribute to a culture which values diversity and inclusion.5. Comply with NHSBSA policies, procedures, and protocols as they apply to your role.

Working relationships

Responsible to: DDaT People Manager Responsible for: Test and assurance resource within the DDaT Test Community Key relationships and connections: 1. Professional Leadershipa. Professional Lead for Testb. Principal Test and Assurance Leadsc. Principal Developersd. Professional Lead for Designe. Professional Lead for User Researchf. Professional Leads for Data (various)2. DDaT Test Community3. Heads of Professiona. Software Engineering Development and Testb. Architecturec. User Centred Design4. People Managers5. Lead Delivery Managers, Delivery Managers6. Architecture (Enterprise, Data, Solution, Technical)7. Security (Information Security, Information Governance, Cyber Security)8. Platform Engineering including DevOps9. Live Support & Operations10. IT Service Management

Person Specification

Personal Qualities, Knowledge and Skills

• Practitioner in software testing in agile deliveries and techniques, supporting the long term testing strategy and testing standards set for the DDaT Test Community and DDaT service deliveries.
• Understands and can explain the necessity of robust test and assurance processes and capabilities within the organisation, offering advice and consultation to key stakeholders.
• Expert in a wide range of test and assurance methodologies including, but not limited to, at least 3 of the following: a. Functional integration acceptance testing (including UI, API and database) b. Accessibility testing c. Compatibility testing d. Performance testing e. Security test techniques f. Data processing testing g. Data migration validation
• Expert in evaluating testing proposals from internal delivery teams and external suppliers and making recommendations to senior stakeholders.
• Expert in version control (Git), CI/CD build pipelines and release strategies.
• Expert in evaluating test results and reports, including the residual risk, and making recommendations to senior stakeholders.
• Strong working knowledge in developing and implementing operational test standards, processes and procedures including behaviour-driven development (BDD), functional and non-functional testing, test automation, test assurance, as well as generic testing standards.
• Strong working knowledge of a wide range of testing tools across a wide range of test areas including, but not limited to: a.Selenium Java, Serenity, Karate, Postman [functional integration acceptance testing] b.Wave, Axe, Lighthouse and assistive technologies, e.g. screen readers such as JAWS and speech recognition such as Dragon [accessibility testing] c.SauceLabs [compatibility testing] d.JMeter [performance testing] e.OWASP ZAP [dynamic application security testing]
• Strong working knowledge of requirements capture and ensuring requirements are testable.
• Strong working knowledge of investigating and prototyping new and emerging test tools, techniques and technologies.
• Working knowledge of release and change management.
• Working knowledge of 3rd line application support providing thorough defect analysis to the business including reproduceable steps to the issue and appraising remediation actions through review of retest results.
• Exposure to business change, rationalisation and transformation.
• Exposure to agile delivery frameworks across cloud technologies including software engineering practices such as DevOps.

• Working knowledge of creating and developing new test frameworks from scratch.
• Knowledge of development quality controls such as unit testing using tools such as Postman and Cypress, and static analysis using tools such as SonarQube.
• Working knowledge of requirements capture and product selection through formal procurement processes.
• Exposure to formal risk management techniques covering identify, define, assess and treat stages.
• Awareness of commercial procurement processes and frameworks.

Experience

• Demonstrable ongoing Continuous Professional Development.
• Experience of automated and manual testing techniques, using and testing open source technology, and testing solutions built on a variety of cloud platforms (for example AWS, Azure, Oracle, Fabric).
• Being part of an agile team, with experience of scrum lifecycle, ceremonies, retrospectives and concepts such as user stories, acceptance criteria and the definition of done.
• Supporting services and projects as a lead of a cluster of test and assurance teams, focussing on technical test assurance practices and international software testing standards such as ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119.
• Supporting the identification of testable functional and non-functional requirements and ensuring they are captured and implemented as part of a project or programme of work.
• Engaging and building relationships with a range of stakeholders to support delivery of user and business needs via robust test and assurance strategies and approaches.
• Oversight of test and assurance activities across a cluster of services, assuring test approaches, analysing progress and test results and proactively resolving problems that arise during test activities.
• Understanding the impact and awareness of project plans and delivery commitments by implementing risk-based test approaches and sharing the test outcomes and residual risk.
• Mentoring and coaching a community of test professionals, implementing learning and development opportunities, identifying improvements and optimisation, and introducing new test tools and methods.
• Influencing and managing teams and people across multiple locations in a large, complex matrix managed organisation.
• Communicating ideas and producing engaging presentations to different audiences.
• Multi-tasking, analysing opportunities, defining successful approaches, and proactively solving complex problems by applying logical reasoning and pragmatic solutions.

• Developing and implementing emerging trends and technologies into the test profession to benefit the organisation.
• Applying Government and/or NHS Service Standards to deliver solutions to meet user needs, with particular emphasis on those that impact or require test effort.
• Interaction with a range of external, third-party suppliers.
• Use of common agile supportive tooling such as Jira, Confluence, Miro.

Qualifications

• Level 6 equivalent qualification in IT or related subject (e.g. BSc Computing) OR Relevant experience of the subject matter

• Level 7 equivalent qualification in IT or related subject (e.g. MSc Computing)

Employer details

Employer name

NHS Business Services Authority

Address

Stella House

Goldcrest way, Newburn Riverside

Newcastle Upon Tyne

NE15 8NY

United Kingdom

Employer's website

https://careers.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/