Head of Quality Engineering

IDBS; Woking; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Head of Risk Assurance to lead risk management within its technology organization. This dynamic role involves collaborating with Agile teams to design and oversee risk assurance frameworks, ensuring software processes meet security and compliance standards. The ideal candidate will possess deep expertise in quality and risk management, along with a strong technical background in Agile software practices. Join a forward-thinking company that values flexibility and empowers its employees to make impactful contributions in a safe and collaborative environment.

Benefits

Flexible working arrangements

Career development opportunities

Collaborative work environment

Diversity and inclusion initiatives

Qualifications

• Deep knowledge of quality and risk management practices.
• Experience in Agile methodologies and software engineering principles.

Responsibilities

• Develop and implement a robust risk assurance framework.
• Ensure compliance with software industry regulations.
• Lead and mentor a high-performing risk assurance practice.

Skills

Risk Management

Agile Software Development

Quality Assurance

Collaboration

Compliance Knowledge

Stakeholder Engagement

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field

Certifications in Risk Management or Quality Assurance

Tools

Test Automation Tools

Continuous Integration Tools

Quality Management Systems (QMS)

Job description

ABOUT IDBS

IDBS helps BioPharma organizations unlock the potential of AI/ML to improve the lives of patients. As a trusted long-term partner to 80% of the top 20 global BioPharma companies, IDBS delivers powerful cloud software and services specifically designed to meet the evolving needs of the BioPharma sector.

IDBS, a Danaher company, leverages 35 years of scientific informatics expertise to help organizations design, execute and orchestrate processes, manage, contextualize and structure data and gain valuable insights throughout the product lifecycle, from R&D through manufacturing. Known for its signature IDBS E-WorkBook software, IDBS has extended its flexible, scalable solutions to the IDBS Polar and PIMS cloud platforms to help scientists make smarter decisions with assured confidence in both GxP and non-GxP environments.

Do you want to work in a dynamic, fast paced, high performing, safe to fail and fun environment which is founded on trust, empowerment and autonomy? Are you passionate about technology and do you enjoy acting as an agent for change, bringing people together to design and deliver world-class, scalable and secure solutions? If so, we'd like to hear from you.

We are seeking an experienced and dynamic Head of Risk Assurance to lead our risk management and assurance functions within our technology organisation. Reporting directly to the CTO, this role will be responsible for working across our technology teams to collaboratively surface, design, implement, and oversee comprehensive risk assurance frameworks, ensuring that our software design, development, deployment, and operational processes meet the highest standards of security, compliance, and resilience. The ideal candidate will bring deep knowledge of quality and risk management practices, software engineering principles, and industry regulations, along with the ability to work cross-functionally with engineering, product, customer operation, legal, and executive teams.

As well as having a deep technical background in modern Agile software engineering and test practices, this person will be highly collaborative and empathic, a great listener who is able to surface and evolve people's ideas, unite people when reaching difficult decisions, deal well with ambiguity and is highly capable of leading by influence.

What we'll get you doing:

1. Testing Community of Practice: Establish a vibrant, engaged Risk Assurance 'Community of Practice' comprised of all Test Engineers & Test Leads across IDBS' 'Full Practice' Agile teams, with other roles welcomed to join and participate.
2. Risk Minimisation: Work across our Agile teams to surface, define, communicate and establish shared ways of working which 'build quality in' right from the very beginning of the development life-cycle, such as selecting appropriate architectures, languages, platforms and coding practices which minimise risk and the cost of testing later in the SDLC / life of the solution.
3. Risk Prediction: Work across our Agile teams to surface, define, communicate and establish shared ways of working which promote a thoughtful approach to how the team form their test strategy for new features, considering what's changed, what could go wrong and how bad it would be if things did go wrong and, based on this, how code should be structured to make it testable and what type of test cases should be created to catch problems early on.
4. Risk Detection: Work across our Agile teams to surface, define, communicate and establish shared 'best practice' for documenting, automating, executing, reporting and maintaining test cases and test plans.
5. Risk Management: Work across the teams to surface, define, communicate and establish shared best practice for a robust, efficient and effective CD pipeline, which detects problems quickly in our software updates and implements counter-measures to remediate problems when they occur.
6. Tools & Frameworks: Work across our Agile teams to define and agree a common test framework including 'best in class' test tools, test harness, test environments, test languages and test data generation software and, once agreed, create a transition plan for each team to standardise on the agreed toolset over time.
7. Simplification of QMS Processes: Review and assess our existing QMS processes associated with testing and determine how these can be streamlined, simplified and reduced to allow the teams to work more efficiently, whilst maintaining appropriate levels of Risk Assurance.

Here is what success in this role looks like:

1. Risk Assurance Strategy: Develop and implement a robust risk assurance framework aligned with IDBS' software engineering processes and business goals. Establish risk tolerance levels and ensure risk policies support agile development methodologies.
2. Governance & Compliance: Ensure compliance with relevant software industry regulations (e.g., ISO 27001, SOC 2, GDPR). As part of this you will contribute to internal and external audits related to software risk and assurance.
3. Risk Identification & Mitigation: Identify emerging risks associated with software development, cloud services, DevOps practices, and open-source integrations. Oversee risk assessments throughout the software lifecycle, from design to deployment.
4. Stakeholder Engagement: Serve as a trusted advisor to the CTO and engineering leadership on all matters related to software risk. Collaborate with IDBS' Agile teams to embed Risk Assurance best practices into daily engineering operations.
5. Assurance Reporting: Prepare and present regular risk assurance reports to the executive leadership and board committees. Implement Objective & Key Results (OKRs) and Risk Assurance KPIs to track and report risk performance.
6. Leadership & Team Development: Lead, mentor, and coach a high-performing risk assurance practice. Foster a culture of proactive risk management and continuous improvement. Be a selfless, apolitical altruist who always leaves their ego at the door and encourages others to do the same.

At IDBS we believe in designing a better, more sustainable workforce. We recognize the benefits of flexible working arrangements for eligible roles and are committed to providing enriching careers, no matter the work arrangement. This position is eligible for a flexible work arrangement in which you can work part-time at the Company location identified above and part-time remotely from your home. Additional information about this work arrangement will be provided by your interview team. Explore the flexibility and challenge that working for IDBS can provide.

Join our winning team today. Together, we'll accelerate the real-life impact of tomorrow's science and technology. We partner with customers across the globe to help them solve their most complex challenges, architecting solutions that bring the power of science to life.

For more information, visit www.danaher.com.

At Danaher, we value diversity and the existence of similarities and differences, both visible and not, found in our workforce, workplace and throughout the markets we serve. Our associates, customers and shareholders contribute unique and different perspectives as a result of these diverse attributes.