Testing Lead

Yallo Retail; United Arab Emirates; On-site; AED 670,000 - 1,116,000; Full time

Job summary

Yallo Retail in Dubai, UAE seeks a Testing Lead to own test strategy, execution and quality gates across SAP and legacy systems within the Transform programme. The role requires onsite collaboration with delivery teams and system integrators to ensure on-time Go/No-Go decisions.

You will lead test planning, defect governance, and reporting across multi-system landscapes, balancing risk, quality and programme timelines while leveraging QTest and other testing tools.

Qualifications

• Eight years or more in software testing, with at least four years leading test on large-scale programmes.
• Proven ownership of system integration testing and user acceptance testing across integrated landscapes.
• Strong integration testing background: APIs, middleware and end-to-end testing.
• Experience in retail or consumer technology landscapes (POS, OMS, WMS, e-commerce).
• Experience managing testing delivered by system integrators or offshore vendors.

Responsibilities

• Own test strategy and planning across legacy estate and SAP integrations.
• Define scope, coverage and approach for each test phase including SIT and UAT.
• Review vendor scenarios for completeness and business relevance.
• Coordinate environments, data, prerequisites; flag gaps with owners.
• Run daily test execution and govern defects end-to-end.
• Produce daily/weekly test reporting for programme governance.
• Define entry/exit criteria and provide sign-off recommendations.
• Coordinate business testers through UAT and track progress.

Skills

Test leadership

System integration testing

User acceptance testing

APIs & middleware

Retail tech landscape

Vendor management

QTest experience

Phase exit criteria

Tools

QTest

Job description

Job Title: Testing Lead
Location: Dubai, UAE. Onsite
Job type: Contract

Job Description:

Its a leading partner for luxury across the Middle East. The Technology & Data function is delivering Transform, a multi-release programme covering SAP and the group's omnichannel estate, spanning Finance, HR and Payroll, and Omnichannel, Logistics and Retail. Delivery follows a release-per-country and per-scope approach, so successive go-lives run back to back. Delivery is run with a system integrator and specialist testing partners alongside internal teams.

Overall test leadership for the SAP scope sits within the Transform programme. This role owns testing on the Technology & Data side: the legacy estate and the integrations between the legacy systems and SAP. The scope covers point of sale, order management, warehouse management, digital commerce and customer platforms, and the integration layer between them. Test scenarios and defect resolution involve the system integrator and specialist testing vendors, so the role carries real accountability for holding partners to quality and to committed dates.

Purpose of the role:

To own test strategy, execution and quality gates across the Technology & Data scope, and to give the programme an evidence-based view of whether it is ready to go live. The role is onsite by design: the work depends on daily proximity to the delivery teams and to the system integrator.

Key responsibilities:

Test strategy and planning:

• Own the test strategy and test plan across the legacy estate and legacy-to-SAP integrations.
• Define scope, coverage and the approach for each test phase, including system integration testing and user acceptance testing.
• Review the scenarios and test conditions produced by partners for completeness, quality and business relevance, and reject what does not meet the standard.
• Confirm that environment, data and prerequisite dependencies are in place before each phase starts, and flag gaps early with a clear owner.

Execution and defect governance:

• Run daily test execution: progress against plan, blockers, and re-planning where execution slips.
• Own defect governance end to end: triage, severity and priority assignment, assignment to the responsible party, and tracking to closure.
• Hold the system integrator and testing vendors to agreed resolution timeframes, and escalates with evidence when they are missed.
• Produce daily and weekly test reporting for programme governance, with an accurate attribution of the causes of any delay.

Quality gates and readiness:

• Define and enforce entry and exit criteria for each test phase.
• Provide a formal, evidence-based sign-off recommendation at the end of each phase, including any residual risk.
• Coordinate business testers through user acceptance testing: onboarding, scheduling, support and progress tracking.
• Feed test outcomes and open defects into cutover and go/no-go decision making.

Tooling and interfaces:

• Administer the test management tool, currently QTest, including configuration, structure and reliable reporting output.
• Interface with the Transform Overall Testing Lead on end-to-end flows that cross SAP and the legacy estate, ensuring no coverage gap between the two sides.

Essential experience:

• Eight years or more in software testing, with at least four years leading test on large-scale, multi-system programmes.
• Proven ownership of system integration testing and user acceptance testing across integrated landscapes, not single-application testing.
• Strong integration testing background: APIs, middleware, message flows and end-to-end transaction testing across multiple systems.
• Experience of retail or consumer technology landscapes: point of sale, order management, warehouse management, e-commerce or customer platforms.
• Demonstrable experience managing testing delivered by a system integrator or offshore vendor, including challenging the quality of their deliverables.
• Hands-on experience with a test management tool. QTest is an advantage; equivalent tools are acceptable.
• Experience defining and enforcing phase exit criteria and making formal sign-off recommendations.

Desirable:

• Exposure to programmes running SAP alongside a non-SAP estate, with integration between the two.
• Experience of test automation strategy, even where execution remains largely manual.
• ISTQB certification or equivalent.
• Prior experience in the Middle East region.

Skills and behaviours:

• Willing to hold a firm line on quality with partners, professionally and with evidence.
• Clear and factual reporting, including when the message is unwelcome.
• Comfortable working onsite alongside delivery teams and partner teams every day.
• Clear written and verbal communication in English, including to senior stakeholders.