SIT Lead – SAP Test Governance

Cognizant; Foster City (CA); Hybrid; USD 81,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance

Paid holidays and PTO

401(k) plan

Disability insurance

Paid Parental Leave

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Job summary

Cognizant in Foster City, CA is seeking a Senior SAP Test Manager to define and govern enterprise SIT and UAT standards for a complex SAP transformation. You will lead test strategies, planning, and governance across releases, collaborating with business, technology, and vendor teams.

The role emphasizes evidence-based quality insights, readiness gating, and risk management, with a focus on traceability, defect lifecycle, metrics, and continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of software testing, quality engineering, UAT, or SAP delivery.
• Extensive experience in SIT leadership and test governance for complex programs.
• Strong knowledge of test strategy, planning, traceability, risk-based testing, design, and defect management.
• Experience establishing SIT/UAT standards, readiness checkpoints, KPIs, dashboards, and leadership reporting.
• Familiarity with enterprise test management and defect-tracking tools (ALM, Jira).
• Ability to interpret data, identify risks, and communicate recommendations to executives.
• Excellent facilitation, stakeholder management, decision-framing, and risk escalation.

Responsibilities

• Define and govern SIT and UAT strategies, standards, planning practices, governance, and readiness criteria.
• Lead SIT readiness and governance reviews, close actions, and provide evidence-based release recommendations.
• Govern defect lifecycle, classification, triage, and aging with SLAs and root-cause analysis.
• Define SIT/UAT metrics, dashboards, and reporting covering coverage, defects, trends, and readiness.
• Coordinate UAT across business stakeholders and coach users to validate end-to-end processes.
• Collaborate with delivery teams to improve automation suitability and regression coverage.
• Facilitate governance reviews and escalate critical defects or risk gaps.
• Use lessons learned to drive measurable improvements in testing practices and governance.

Skills

Software testing

Quality engineering

SIT leadership

UAT governance

Test strategy

Stakeholder management

Release readiness

ALM governance

Jira

Tools

ALM

Jira

Job description

About the role

Senior SAP Test Manager – SIT & UAT, you will make an impact by defining and governing enterprise testing standards across System Integration Testing (SIT) and User Acceptance Testing (UAT) for a complex SAP transformation program.

As a

You will be a valued member of the program delivery team and work collaboratively with business stakeholders, technology teams, system integrators, managed service providers, and external partners. You will provide evidence-based quality insights that support test readiness, release decisions, business acceptance, and continuous improvement across the testing lifecycle.

In this role, you will:

• Define and govern SIT and UAT strategies, methodologies, quality standards, test planning practices, governance checkpoints, and readiness criteria across releases and delivery models.
• Lead SIT readiness and governance reviews, oversee the closure of actions, conditions, exceptions, and risks, and provide evidence-based recommendations for release-readiness and sign-off decisions.
• Govern test design standards, requirements-to-test traceability, risk-based testing, regression suite selection, reusable test assets, test evidence, and test management repository practices.
• Establish and govern the defect lifecycle, including defect logging, classification, severity, priority, triage, aging, service-level expectations, root cause analysis, duplicate and invalid defect handling, and deferral controls.
• Define and maintain SIT and UAT metrics, KPIs, dashboards, and reporting standards covering execution progress, test coverage, defects, aging, trends, automation, risks, and overall readiness.
• Establish and govern the UAT approach, methodology, test planning standards, execution-readiness criteria, issue-resolution process, and business acceptance reporting.
• Coordinate UAT activities across business stakeholders and coach business users to validate end-to-end business processes beyond individual functional requirements.
• Partner with delivery teams to improve automation suitability and sustainable regression coverage while maintaining test quality, evidence, and requirements traceability.
• Facilitate governance-level defect and quality reviews, escalating unresolved critical defects, overdue actions, decision gaps, and other material testing risks.
• Use lessons learned, trend analysis, and recurring control gaps to drive measurable improvements in testing practices, quality controls, and governance effectiveness.

Work model

We believe hybrid work is the way forward as we strive to provide flexibility wherever possible. Based on this role’s business requirements, this is a hybrid position requiring three days a week in a client or Cognizant office in Foster City, California. Regardless of your working arrangement, we are here to support a healthy work-life balance through our various wellbeing programs.

The working arrangements for this role are accurate as of the date of posting. This may change based on the project you are engaged in, as well as business and client requirements. Rest assured, we will always be clear about role expectations.

What you need to have to be considered

• 12 + years of experience in software testing, quality engineering, User Acceptance Testing, business process testing, SAP application delivery, or related disciplines.
• Significant experience in enterprise testing, quality engineering, SIT leadership, or test governance for complex, integrated technology programs.
• Strong knowledge of test strategy, test planning, requirements traceability, risk-based testing, test design, regression management, defect management, and release-readiness controls.
• Experience establishing and governing SIT and UAT standards, readiness checkpoints, governance metrics, KPIs, dashboards, and leadership-level reporting.
• Experience using enterprise test management and defect-tracking tools, preferably OpenText Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and Jira, including repository structure, data quality, configuration, and reporting governance.
• Ability to interpret testing and quality data, identify risk signals, challenge incomplete evidence, and communicate clear recommendations to senior stakeholders.
• Strong facilitation, stakeholder management, decision-framing, communication, and risk-escalation skills.
• Experience working across business teams, technology groups, system integrators, managed service providers, and external delivery partners.

These will help you stand out

• Experience governing testing for a large-scale SAP transformation involving complex integrations and end-to-end business processes.
• Experience coordinating business-led UAT activities across multiple functions and stakeholder groups.
• Knowledge of test automation suitability, regression optimization, reusable test-asset management, and sustainable quality engineering practices.
• Relevant certifications in software testing, quality engineering, Agile delivery, project management, or SAP technologies.
• Experience presenting testing quality, readiness, defect, and risk insights to program governance and senior leadership forums.

Salary and Other Compensation

The annual salary for this position is between $81,000 to $130,000 depending on experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate.

This position is also eligible for Cognizant’s discretionary annual incentive program, based on performance and subject to the terms of Cognizant’s applicable plans.

Benefits

• Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance
• Paid holidays plus Paid Time Off
• 401(k) plan and contributions
• Long-term/Short-term Disability
• Paid Parental Leave
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan