Lead - Testing

Kaingaora; Wellington; On-site; NZD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Jora New Zealand is seeking a Lead – Testing to drive testing capability within the Digital IT function, ensuring quality outcomes across delivery.

The role combines people leadership with hands‑on testing leadership, guiding a team of Senior Test Analysts and Test Analysts while contributing to high‑risk testing activities and advancing automation maturity.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in software testing within large, complex enterprise environments.
• Proven track record leading testing teams with responsibility for performance and delivery outcomes.
• Deep understanding of testing strategy, management, and quality assurance across functional, regression, integration and UAT testing.

Responsibilities

• Lead testing across multiple initiatives and ensure end‑to‑end testing outcomes.
• Define, embed and continuously improve testing frameworks, standards and governance.
• Promote automation and modern engineering practices (TDD/BDD) to raise quality and efficiency.
• Partner with Product, Delivery, Engineering and Architecture to embed quality early in design and build.

Skills

People leadership

Testing leadership

Test automation

SDLC & Agile

Risk-based testing

Quality assurance

Job description

Jora New Zealand will close on 9th September 2026. Thank you for being with us, we are cheering you on as you continue your career journey.

The Lead – Testing leads testing capability within the Business Technology Solutions function of Digital IT, ensuring testing activities are effectively planned, coordinated, and delivered to support high‑quality business outcomes.

The role combines people leadership with hands‑on testing leadership, managing a team of Senior Test Analysts and Test Analysts while also contributing to complex or high‑risk testing activities where required. The role plays a key part in ensuring testing is embedded effectively across the delivery lifecycle, reducing risk and improving solution quality.

Working closely with Product Managers, Delivery Managers, Business Analysts, engineers, and stakeholders, the Lead ensures testing services are aligned to delivery priorities while also supporting uplift in testing capability, including progression toward greater automation maturity.

The role provides evidence‑based assessment and recommendations relating to test coverage, quality risk, and release readiness to support informed delivery decisions. Final release and operational readiness decisions remain with delivery and governance accountabilities.

The Lead - Testing will advocate for and support modern engineering practices such as Test-Driven Development (TDD) and Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD). They will also promote the effective use of automation to improve quality outcomes, efficiency, and delivery effectiveness.

Championing a positive, inclusive, and collaborative culture that enables both people and teams to succeed are further facets of the Lead - Testing role.

To be successful in this role the Lead – Testing will have:

• Extensive experience in software testing within large, complex enterprise environments, including accountability for end‑to‑end testing outcomes across multiple initiatives
• Proven track record leading testing teams, including Senior Test Analysts, with responsibility for performance, capability development, and delivery outcomes
• Deep understanding of testing strategy, test management, and quality assurance practices across functional, regression, integration, and UAT testing
• Strong ability to define, embed, and continuously improve testing frameworks, standards, and governance across teams
• Demonstrated experience operating across the full delivery lifecycle, with strong understanding of SDLC and agile delivery at scale
• Experience influencing delivery and technical stakeholders (Product, Delivery, Engineering, Architecture) to ensure quality is embedded early in design and build phases
• Strong capability in risk‑based testing approaches, including ability to assess, prioritise, and guide testing effort based on business and technical risk
• Experience identifying systemic issues in testing practices and driving structured improvements across tools, processes, and capability uplift
• Strong leadership presence with the ability to guide teams through ambiguity, competing priorities, and high‑pressure delivery environments
• Working knowledge of automation testing approaches and frameworks, with the ability to support transition from manual to automated testing practices
• Set Test strategy and Lead testing for across multiple teams

Further, the Lead - Testing will need to be able to:

• Think beyond traditional testing and promote a quality engineering mindset
• Embed quality across the entire software delivery lifecycle (SDLC)
• Champion Shift Left practices to ensure quality is considered early and continuously throughout delivery
• Promote the effective use of automation to improve quality outcomes, efficiency, and delivery effectiveness

You will be a people‑focused leader who creates a culture and environment where teams can thrive and people feel supported, empowered, and able to do their best work. You will foster trust, psychological safety, collaboration, and continuous learning, empowering individuals and teams to take ownership of quality and deliver their best work.