Head of Testing

Intellect Design Arena Ltd; Chennai District; On-site; INR 4,500,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Intellect Design Arena Ltd. seeks an experienced Offshore Delivery Test Head to own end-to-end quality engineering for a multi-geography client account.

Lead a centralized offshore testing organization with onshore UK presence, driving automation, governance, and AI-enabled testing across eMACH.ai and PF Wealth portfolios. You will collaborate with Architecture, Delivery, Engineering, and Client Success to ensure release quality and client confidence, embedding a culture of quality and

Qualifications

• 18+ years in Software Testing/Quality Engineering in Banking/Wealth/FinTech.
• Senior leadership experience managing multi-geo offshore test centres.
• Proven ability to build/scale global testing teams and budgets.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the test strategy, methodologies and quality frameworks across engagements.
• Drive automation use, standardized processes, entry/exit criteria, and defect management.
• Maintain AI governance and responsible AI adoption in regulated environments.
• Oversee test readiness and release sign-off, ensuring cross-functional alignment.
• Define test strategies for large Digital and Salesforce implementations and mobile apps.
• Lead automation, functional, regression, data, integration, performance and security testing.

Skills

Test strategy

Automation testing

AI-driven testing

Stakeholder management

Quality governance

Tools

CI/CD tools

Job description

We are seeking an experienced Offshore Delivery Test Head to own the end-to-end quality engineering and testing function for a large multi-geography key client account This is a critical leadership role responsible for developing a scalable, standardized testing organization that safeguards release quality, accelerates delivery velocity, and strengthens client confidence across our eMACH.ai and PF Wealth portfolios. You will work closely with the client to drive usage of AI benefits across testing, unify test strategy, drive automation uptake around methods such as Acceptance Test-Driven Development (ATDD) or Behavior-Driven Development (BDD), and governance across programs, acting as the primary quality custodian between Architecture, Delivery, Engineering, and Client Success.

Key Mandates

• Unified Test Function Leadership: Enhance and lead a centralized offshore testing organization with an onshore presence in the UK at client site, spanning functional, automation, performance, and regression testing across all delivery programs and capabilities. Owning the onshore/ offshore resourcing model, capacity planning and skill mix ratios across UK and India.
• Quality-Led Delivery Governance: Own test strategy and quality gates end-to-end, ensuring releases are defect-free, predictable, and aligned to client SLAs and compliance requirements.
• Test Automation & Efficiency: Drive at pace the shift from manual to automation-first testing, optimizing coverage, reducing cycle time and improving defect leakage metrics across programs.
• Delivery Integration: Act as the primary quality partner to Architecture, Delivery, Engineering, and Program Management teams to ensure a "One Intellect" approach to release readiness and client sign-off.
• Testing & Thought Leadership: Stay current on industry trends and emerging technologies in QA, AI, DevOps, and testing to drive innovation whilst championing and embedding a culture of quality, accountability, and continuous improvement. Owning the innovation/AI roadmap for test delivery (GenAI test generation, self-healing automation, agentic testing tools), evaluate, pilot, and drive adoption; be the technical point of credibility when discussing AI direction with the client counterpart.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the test strategy, methodology, and quality frameworks across all delivery engagements.
• Optimize existing use of automation, standardized test processes, entry/exit criteria, and defect management practices across programs.
• Maintain a strong working understanding of AI governance and responsible AI adoption in regulated environments
• Oversee Test readiness and release sign-off, ensuring cross-functional alignment between Engineering, Delivery, DevOps, Release and Client functions.
• Drive and define the Test Strategies for large scale Digital and Salesforce implementations and aligned Mobile Apps across both B2B and B2C channels for native iOS and Android applications covering automation, functional, data focused, usability, performance and security testing.
• Lead automation, functional, regression, data, integration, performance, operational acceptance and security testing across a key client account integrating as appropriate with eMACH.ai Wealth and PF Wealth suites.
• Drive automation coverage expansion, tooling adoption, and CI/CD-integrated testing pipelines.
• Manage test pipeline health by overseeing defect aging, root-cause analysis, and driving resolution for critical/high-severity issues.

Cross-Functional Orchestration

• Delivery Interlock: Work closely with Delivery Heads to ensure test plans, resourcing, and timelines are realistic, scalable, and aligned to project milestones.
• Engineering Alignment: Partner with Engineering teams to shift testing left, embedding automation and quality checks earlier in the development lifecycle.
• Client Engagement: Represent the quality function in client governance forums, providing transparent status reporting, risk visibility, and quality metrics.

Qualifications & Experience

• Experience: 18+ years in Software Testing/Quality Engineering within Banking, Wealth Management, Capital Markets, or FinTech domains, with at least 10+ years in senior leadership roles managing multi geo teams powered by large offshore test centres.
• Domain Expertise: Deep understanding of the Wealth & Asset Management lifecycle, including Retirements, Investments, overall financial planning, Mortgages and
• products, Investment platforms and related compliance/regulatory testing needs.
• Strategic Capability: Proven ability to build/scale global testing teams and manage large offshore delivery operations and budgets.
• Tech Fluency: Strong familiarity with modern test automation frameworks, CI/CD pipelines, cloud-native testing, performance/load testing tools, and AI-driven test optimization.
• Stakeholder Management: Exceptional track record of engaging at CxO and senior client levels, both internally across matrixed organizations and externally with global financial institutions.
• Global Capability: Experience and expertise to work across India, APAC, and Advanced markets, supporting distributed delivery teams.
• Thought Leadership: Proven leader who can drive quality engineering best practices and serve in an advisory role to senior customer and internal stakeholders.

Success Metrics

• Quality Impact: Reduction in production defect leakage and improvement in first-time-right delivery rates.
• Test Velocity: Improved test cycle time and automation coverage percentage across programs.
• Operational Efficiency: On-time UAT sign-offs, SLA adherence, and seamless coordination with Delivery for release readiness.