JOB SUMMARY

This role could be based in India and Singapore. When you start the application process you will be presented with a drop down menu showing all countries, Please ensure that you select a country where the role is based.

The Testing Centre of Excellence (TCoE) will be a newly created function, dedicated to streamlining testing processes, enhancing quality assurance practices and drive efficiencies across the Bank.  It will be responsible for establishing and promoting best practices, governance, tools and methodologies related to all aspects of testing. Ensure that Technology & Operations (in partnership with the QA Heads) build, test and release trusted high quality solutions at scale for our businesses.

Whilst this role will report to the Group Chief Information Officer (Technology & Operations), this role will have influence and overarching responsibilities for driving testing across the Bank.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategy
•    Define and lead the overall testing strategy, vision, OKRs, and modernization roadmap, including BDD, shift-left testing, and automation.
•    Strategise AI-driven solutions to enhance testing efficiency, accuracy and innovation within the Testing CoE
•    Refine priorities and adjust the testing strategy and modernisation plan in alignment with the latest best practices and industry trends.
•    Incorporate domain specific insights and requirements (e.g., customer journeys, IBD) from QA Heads into the testing strategy.
•    Engage with senior leaders and key stakeholders across relevant teams across the bank to understand their needs and ensure alignment with outputs. 
•    Provide advice and expertise to senior stakeholders on testing matters including regulations, risks, improvement plans and industry best practices.
•    Facilitate regular feedback loops with stakeholders to ensure continuous alignment and satisfaction with CoE services.
•    Promote a culture of continuous improvement, automation and quality first thinking across the Bank.

Business
•    Work closely with respective CIB/ WRB/ Functions QA COOs and Tech Heads to ensure Ops and Tech together deliver high quality outcomes for Clients.
•    Provide testing oversight for end-to-end Operational/ Business/ Client testing across SCB. Ensures that test teams do not duplicate testing executed by Technology teams.
•    Determine and mandate test coverage and scenarios for domain teams; focus on happy path AND non-happy path and edge-case scenarios, NFT & Chaos testing scenarios, Client/ 3rd party agency testing scenarios/ test cases, etc.
•    Implement cost-saving measures and optimize resource usage without compromising service quality.
•    Lead the QA Community of Practice to promote upskilling, problem solving and knowledge-sharing.

Processes
•    Responsible for managing Testing CoE financial budget (including resource allocations and investments) through regular reporting and review of spends against allocated budgets.
•    Overall responsibility for execution of policies and procedures. This includes reviewing, challenging, and providing oversight of the risk profile of Testing CoE services process universe.
•    Oversight of processes for projects, products, clients, and controls (including offshored processes) to ensure they are fit for purpose and meet regulatory requirements or remediated where necessary.
•    Implement quality assurance standards and processes.
•    Ensure adherence to regulatory requirements.

People & Talent
•    Lead the QA Community of Practice to promote upskilling, problem solving and knowledge-sharing.
•    Conduct capability assessments to surface skill gaps across squads and create targeted upskilling / mentoring plans.
•    Design structured career paths / role based capability frameworks for testing professionals with clear competencies and progression criteria.
•    Upskill QA and engineers through a role based capability framework covering BDD, shift left, and automation.
•    Be an evangelist for best practices & transformation.
•    Ensure that the Testing CoE workforce is trained on appropriate skills as required Ensure a sufficient talent pool of  SMEs / domain experts for high performance and expertise across capabilities.
•    Attract, develop, and retain top talent for the CoE, focusing on building a robust talent pipeline.
•    Ensure concrete career development plans for fostering growth and advancement opportunities across the Testing community.
•    Develop and manage the budgets ensuring that resources are allocated effectively and that financial targets are met.
•    Implement cost-saving measures and optimize resource usage without compromising service quality.

Risk Management
•    Identify key issues and initiate efforts to assess and drive resolution, working in collaboration with their stakeholders across T&O and Functions.
•    Act quickly and decisively when any risk and control weakness become apparent and ensure they are addressed within an appropriate timeframe and, if necessary, escalated through the relevant committees and forums.
•    Balances business performance delivery and cost management constraints with risk and control matters to ensure that they do not materially threaten the function’s ability to remain within risk appetite.
•    Responsible for identifying, assessing, monitoring, controlling and mitigating risks. 
•    Ensure support procedures are in place and adhere to Group Security & Audit policies within the team.
•    Conduct audits and assessments to maintain compliance. Facilitate the conduct of external audits and compliance reviews pertaining to Quality Assurance and Testing.

Governance
•    Establish standardised frameworks, guidelines processes (e.g., shift left testing), and quality metrics; Regularly review quality metrics (e.g. defect leakage to production, test coverage rate) with stakeholders.
•    Govern adherence to testing CoE OKRs, compliance standards, and enterprise-wide test coverage expectations.
•    Ensure that Standards for Testing are complete and comprehensive with respective CIB/ WRB/ Functions QA COO and Tech Heads for end-to-end Testing.
•    Oversee the development and maintenance of knowledge management systems to capture and disseminate expertise and best practices across the organization.
•    Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) and regularly measure performance against these metrics.
•    Drive continuous improvement activities to include lessons learned from programmes into testing and test suites (including regression/ NFT).

Regulatory & Business Conduct

•    Display exemplary conduct and live by the Group’s Values and Code of Conduct. 
•    Take personal responsibility for embedding the highest standards of ethics, including regulatory and business conduct, across Standard Chartered Bank. This includes understanding and ensuring compliance with, in letter and spirit, all applicable laws, regulations, guidelines and the Group Code of Conduct.
•    Effectively and collaboratively identify, escalate, mitigate and resolve risk, conduct and compliance matters.

Key Stakeholders

•    Group CIO core and extended Management Team and their respective teams
•    QA Heads, Technology
•    QA Heads Operations and Functions
•    Global Head, T&O Risk & Control
•    Global Head, ICS
•    COO, Technology & Architecture

Our Ideal Candidate
•    Education     Graduate or equivalent    
•    Languages     English
•    15+ years of relevant experience in QA Engineering, IT Change management, area of sizeable international companies, ideally with experience in the finance sector. International exposure and ability to handle cultural diversity will be essential to this role.
•    A strategic and analytical thinker with strong problem-solving skills that exhibits the ability to make balanced judgments / decisions leveraging quantitative and qualitative approaches.
•    Has ability to articulate problem statements, conceptualise solutions and is prepared to ‘roll up his/her sleeves’ to get the job done. 
•    Proven leadership skills and ability to work as a strong team player in a multi-cultural global setting.
•    Strong stakeholder management and influencing capability, including securing buy-in with senior stake holders and business leaders.
•    Demonstrates ability to concurrently own and work on multiple key areas independently or in a group within a large, rapidly changing environment to deliver high quality outcomes on time, even with limited direction.
•    Confident and courageous to raise/escalate issues in a pro-active, professional, and timely manner.
•    Demonstrate understanding of and commitment to the Group’s core values.

Role Specific Technical Competencies
•    Application Testing
•    Change Control
•    Software Security Assurance
•    Penetration Testing
•    Performance Measurement and Tuning
•    Software Product Testing
•    Software Quality Assurance
•    System Testing
•    System Testing Tools
•    User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
•    Governance, Oversight and Control

About Standard Chartered

We're an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we've worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you're looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can't wait to see the talents you can bring us.

Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you'll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.

Together we:

• Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
• Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
• Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term

What we offer

In line with our Fair Pay Charter, we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.

• Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.
• Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum.
• Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
• Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
• A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.
• Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies - everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.