People Services AI Solutions Specialist & Test Lead

Manulife Financial; Southwestern Ontario; On-site; CAD 71,000 - 118,000; Full time

Job summary

Manulife Financial is seeking an AI Solutions Specialist in People Services who will bridge business analysis and testing for AI-enabled HR capabilities. You will gather requirements, create user stories, define acceptance criteria, and lead testing activities across regions and HR stakeholder groups.

The role focuses on ensuring solutions are well-defined, compliant, and ready for deployment, while coordinating cross-functional teams and maintaining traceability from requirements to release

Qualifications

• 3+ years of progressive experience in technology testing, UAT, QA, business analysis, HR technology delivery or related discipline.
• Ability to translate business needs into delivery, testing, backlog, and release readiness artifacts.
• Experience coordinating UAT activities across multiple stakeholder groups and regions.

Responsibilities

• Gather, document, and clarify business requirements for AI-enabled People Services capabilities.
• Develop user stories, acceptance criteria, and business rules in partnership with Product Lead and HR SMEs.
• Map workflows to support solution design, testing scope, and release planning.
• Develop and maintain test plans, scenarios, scripts, and validation criteria for AI features.
• Coordinate testers across regions and HR stakeholder groups for releases and pilots.
• Provide concise stakeholder updates on testing progress, risks, and recommendations.

Skills

Technology testing

Business analysis

Stakeholder management

Testing leadership

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Business/IT/HR

Tools

Jira

Smartsheets

Job description

Empowering People Through Technology: Join Manulife’s Global HR Transformation

At Manulife, we are transforming how our people experience work. Our PeopleComms Technology team enables simple, personalized, and compliant People Services solutions for colleagues worldwide. We value innovation, collaboration, and human-centered design, helping every employee thrive.

The Opportunity

At Manulife, we are reimagining how colleagues and leaders access People Services through AI-enabled experiences. As our People Services AI capabilities evolve, this role will help shape how HR processes and services are delivered in the flow of work.

As People Services, AI Solutions Specialist, Business Analysis & Test Lead, you will support the delivery of People Services AI capabilities by gathering and documenting business requirements, translating stakeholder needs into user stories and acceptance criteria, and leading testing activities that validate solutions before deployment. This role bridges business analysis and testing, helping ensure solutions are well-defined, practical, compliant, and ready for colleagues and HR teams.

Working closely with the People Services AI Product Lead, HR stakeholders, product owners, technology teams, and business testers, you will help clarify requirements, map current and future state workflows, support backlog refinement, develop testing strategies, coordinate testing activities, consolidate results, identify trends, and provide recommendations that improve product quality and colleague experience.

This is an individual contributor role requiring strong analytical capability, stakeholder management, testing leadership, and decision-making skills.

Key Responsibilities

• Gather, document, and clarify business requirements for new features, enhancements, content updates, process changes, and AI-enabled People Services capabilities.

• Support stakeholder discussions, working sessions, and workshops to understand business needs, pain points, risks, desired outcomes, and operational impacts.

• Develop user stories, acceptance criteria, process documentation, and business rules in partnership with the Product Lead, HR SMEs, and delivery teams.

• Map current and future state workflows to support solution design, testing scope, training needs, change readiness, and release planning.

• Develop and maintain test plans, approaches, and release validation plans for AI-enabled features, enhancements, content updates, and production releases.

• Create test scenarios, scripts, validation criteria, and documentation aligned to business requirements, acceptance criteria, user stories, and expected colleague outcomes.

• Identify and coordinate appropriate testers for each release, including diverse groups across regions, roles, personas, HR stakeholder groups, employee populations, and use cases.

• Coordinate User Acceptance Testing, pilot testing, regression testing, validation sessions, feedback collection, and release readiness activities.

• Gather, review, and consolidate test results, defects, feedback, open questions, observations, enhancement requests, and stakeholder recommendations.

• Analyze outcomes to identify trends, recurring issues, root causes, usability concerns, content gaps, answer quality issues, and improvement opportunities.

• Distinguish showstoppers, high-priority defects, content updates, configuration issues, usability concerns, training or communication needs, and future enhancements.

• Assess and communicate release readiness recommendations to stakeholders.

• Support defect triage and release readiness discussions with business stakeholders, the People Services AI Product Lead, and technology delivery teams.

• Support backlog refinement from both business and testing perspectives by translating requirements, testing insights, defects, enhancement requests, and stakeholder feedback into clear Jira tickets, acceptance criteria updates, and delivery recommendations.

• Maintain requirements documentation, testing documentation, decision logs, issue logs, release readiness evidence, lessons learned, and traceability between business needs, user stories, acceptance criteria, scenarios, defects, and outcomes.

• Support continuous improvement of testing templates, standards, UAT practices, tester communications, and release validation processes.

• Provide concise stakeholder updates on testing progress, release risks, key findings, trends, readiness considerations, and recommendations.

• Partner with knowledge management and HR SMEs to validate that AI solutions are accurate, relevant, grounded, and aligned to approved HR policy and process content.

• Build trusted relationships with testers and stakeholders to encourage constructive feedback, practical validation, and early identification of product issues.

What You Bring

• 3+ years of progressive experience in technology testing, UAT, quality assurance, business analysis, HR technology delivery, product support, or a related discipline.

• Experience supporting business analysis activities, including requirements gathering, documentation, stakeholder discussions, process mapping, user stories, and acceptance criteria.

• Ability to translate business needs into clear delivery, testing, backlog, and release readiness artifacts.

• Strong facilitation and listening skills, with the ability to clarify ambiguity, document practical next steps, and bring structure to stakeholder input.

• Understanding of HR service delivery, employee lifecycle events, colleague support channels, HR policies, or HR technology platforms.

• Experience creating test plans, scenarios, scripts, validation criteria, testing documentation, and release readiness summaries.

• Experience coordinating User Acceptance Testing activities across multiple stakeholder groups, business testers, or regional participants.

• Strong analytical skills to review testing outcomes, identify patterns, assess severity, and translate findings into practical recommendations.

• Experience distinguishing between critical defects, release blockers, enhancement opportunities, content issues, configuration gaps, and future backlog items.

• Experience with Jira or similar Agile work management tools, including defect tracking, ticket creation, backlog refinement support, and status updates.

• Experience with Smartsheets or similar test management tools.

• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail, including managing timelines, tester communications, issue logs, and completion evidence.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to summarize testing results clearly for business, technology, and leadership audiences.

• Ability to coordinate cross-functional stakeholders, manage competing priorities, and escalating risks or showstoppers in a timely, balanced way.

• Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced delivery environment where testing, feedback, prioritization, and release decisions happen continuously.

Assets / Nice to Have

• Experience supporting AI-enabled products, virtual assistants, chatbots, Microsoft Copilot agents, conversational AI experiences, or digital assistant technologies.

• Experience testing AI-enabled experiences, including answer quality, accuracy, grounding, relevance, usability, escalation pathways, and user experience.

• Experience with ServiceNow HR Service Delivery (HRSD), Workday, HR case management, employee service portals, knowledge management, or HR technology platforms.

• Experience with Smartsheet, Power BI, Azure DevOps, Jira dashboards, test management tools, or reporting tools for testing outcomes and release quality.

• Experience facilitating tester briefings, feedback sessions, focus groups, office hours, pilots, or post-release lessons learned reviews.

• Experience working with diverse global or regional tester groups across time zones, languages, employee populations, or HR stakeholder groups.

• Human-Centered Design, Agile, Scrum, testing, business analysis, PMP, CBAP, ISTQB, CHRP/CHRL, or related certification.

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Information Technology, HR, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Success Measures

• Clear, well-documented requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, process flows, and business rules that support delivery and testing.

• Strong traceability between business needs, solution design, test coverage, defects, decisions, and release outcomes.

• Stakeholders have confidence that requirements are understood, documented, validated, and reflected in delivery priorities.

• Well-structured test plans, scenarios, scripts, and validation documentation aligned to requirements and release objectives.

• Representative tester participation across relevant stakeholder groups, employee populations, regions, roles, and use cases.

• Timely identification and escalation of showstoppers, critical defects, release risks, and unresolved readiness concerns.

• Clear consolidation of testing results, feedback, defects, insights, trends, decisions, and next steps.

• Effective distinction between release blockers, defects, content or configuration fixes, communication needs, and future enhancements.

• Actionable testing insights that strengthen backlog quality, Jira tickets, acceptance criteria, and future release planning.

• Reduced production issues and improved confidence in release readiness over time.

• Positive stakeholder feedback on testing coordination, communication, documentation, and release readiness recommendations.

Why Join Us?

• Help improve high-visibility AI-enabled HR products that support colleagues and leaders in the flow of work.

• Play a practical role in improving release quality, colleague experience, and confidence in continuous delivery.

• Work across HR, Digital Solutions, technology delivery, knowledge management, and stakeholder groups tovalidate meaningful product improvements.

• Contribute to responsible, practical, and human-centered AI adoption in HR.

Ready to make an impact? Apply today and help shape the future of HR technology at Manulife.

When you join our team

We’ll empower you to learn and grow the career you want.
We’ll recognize and support you in a flexible environment where well-being and inclusion are more than just words.
As part of our global team, we’ll support you in shaping the future you want to see.

#LI-Hybrid

The role being advertised is an existing vacancy.

マニュライフとジョン・ハンコックについて

マニュライフ・ファイナンシャル・コーポレーションは、「あなたの未来に、わかりやすさを」を提供する、国際的な大手金融サービスプロバイダーです。当社について詳しくは、 https://www.manulife.co.jp/ lをご覧ください。

マニュライフは機会均等を是とする雇用主です

マニュライフ/ジョン・ハンコックでは、多様性を受け入れます。私たちは、サービス提供先であるお客さまと同様に、多様な人材を引きつけ、育成し、定着させ、文化や個人の力を受け入れる包括的な職場環境を促進するよう努めています。当社は公正な採用、定着、昇進、報酬に努めています。当社のすべての慣行およびプログラムは、人種、祖先、出身地、肌の色、民族的出自、市民権、宗教または宗教的信念、信条、性別（妊娠および妊娠関連の状態を含む）、性的指向、遺伝的特徴、退役軍人としての地位、性自認、性に関する表明、年齢、婚姻状況、家族状況、障害、または適用法で保護されるその他の要因に対する一切の差別を行うことなく管理されます。

雇用への平等なアクセスを提供するために、障壁を取り除くことが当社の優先事項です。人事担当者は、応募者が応募プロセス中に合理的配慮を要求する場合に協力します。配慮要求のプロセス中に共有されるすべての情報は、適用される法律およびマニュライフ/ジョン・ハンコックのポリシーに準拠した方法で保存および使用されます。申請プロセスにおいて合理的配慮を要求するには、[e-mail]までご連絡をお願いします。

Referenced Salary Location

Waterloo, Ontario

Working Arrangement

ハイブリッド勤務

Salary range is expected to be between

$70,500.00 CAD - $117,500.00 CAD

Employees also have the opportunity to participate in incentive programs and earn incentive compensation tied to business and individual performance. The actual salary will vary depending on local market conditions, geography and relevant job-related factors such as knowledge, skills, qualifications, experience, and education/training. If you are applying for this role outside of the primary location, please contact [e-mail] for the salary range for your location.

Manulife offers eligible employees a wide array of customizable benefits, including health, dental, mental health, vision, short- and long-term disability, life and AD&D insurance coverage, adoption/surrogacy and wellness benefits, and employee/family assistance plans. We also offer eligible employees various retirement savings plans (including pension and a global share ownership plan with employer matching contributions) and financial education and counseling resources. Our generous paid time off program in Canada includes holidays, vacation, personal, and sick days, and we offer the full range of statutory leaves of absence. If you are applying for this role in the U.S., please contact [e-mail] for more information about U.S.-specific paid time off provisions.

We use data and analytics technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), and automated processing tools, to analyze and process the information you provide to us or third parties in the application process. For more information, please refer to our personal information collection statement.