London, United Kingdom | Posted on 26/11/2025
We provide end-to-end IT solutions and services including Applications services, Data & Analytics services, AI/ML Technologies and Professional services in the UK and EU market.
Job Description
Role Summary
We are seeking an experienced Test Manager with strong General Insurance domain expertise and a proven track record of leading large-scale transformation programmes—specifically Duck Creek or Guidewire platform upgrades. The role is responsible for defining and delivering the end-to-end test strategy across multiple streams (functional, regression, integration, UAT, and non-functional). The ideal candidate brings a test engineering mindset, promotes shift‑left practices, drives automation adoption (including Playwright), and enhances quality through continuous testing and robust test governance.
Key Responsibilities
- Define and own the end-to-end test strategy for Duck Creek or Guidewire upgrade programmes, aligned with programme timelines, release plans, and business objectives.
- Lead test planning, estimation, and scheduling across distributed teams and workstreams to ensure timely delivery.
- Implement a risk-based testing approach; maintain a dynamic test risk register and ensure timely mitigation.
- Design and implement the automation strategy across UI and API layers, including frameworks, CI/CD integration, and reusable assets.
- Define non-functional testing (NFT) strategy spanning performance, load, scalability, security, and accessibility testing, collaborating with platform and infrastructure teams.
- Establish a robust Test Data Management (TDM) strategy including data profiling, synthetic data creation, masking, subsetting, and environment refresh cycles.
- Drive test environment strategy, including provisioning, configuration management, and use of service virtualization or mocks for dependency testing.
- Promote a Test Engineering culture through shift-left testing, testability by design, contract testing, and continuous feedback loops.
- Manage stakeholders across business functions, product ownership, architecture, infrastructure, vendor partners, and third-party suppliers.
- Coordinate and govern vendor/supplier testing activities, validating deliverables such as patches, fixes, and acceptance testing artifacts.
- Oversee the defect management lifecycle, ensuring effective triage, prioritization, and resolution; establish and enforce quality gates.
- Provide detailed reporting on quality metrics, coverage, defects, automation ROI, risks, and readiness to senior stakeholders and governance forums.
- Build and mentor high-performing test teams, including test leads, automation engineers, performance specialists, and TDM experts.
- Lead regression and upgrade-specific testing activities, including baseline regression packs, compatibility testing, data migration validation, cutover rehearsals, and post-go-live verification.
Required Technical & Domain Skills
- Extensive experience in General Insurance testing with functional understanding of policy, billing, claims, rating, and endorsement processes.
- Demonstrated delivery experience on Duck Creek or Guidewire upgrade programmes (major version upgrades, LOB migrations, patch upgrades).
- Strong hands-on expertise with Playwright for web UI automation: designing scripts, debugging, parallelization, flakiness reduction, and CI integration.
- Solid grounding in UI and API automation frameworks with experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, etc.).
- Experience with API testing tools (Postman, REST‑assured, or equivalent) and service virtualization techniques.
- Test Data Management experience including masking, synthetic data creation, subsetting, and TDM tooling.
- Non-functional testing experience with performance/load testing tools (JMeter, LoadRunner, etc.) and general security testing awareness.
- Familiarity with test management and defect tracking tools (e.g., JIRA) and modern reporting and orchestration tools.
- Knowledge of cloud environments, containerization, and infrastructure-as-code concepts impacting test environments.
- Experience leading testing within large-scale transformation programmes involving multi-vendor ecosystems and geographically distributed teams.
>Strong stakeholder management with the ability to communicate effectively with senior leadership and steering committees.
- Proven capability to scale testing operations, implement best practices, and transform legacy QA approaches into engineering-led continuous testing models.
Desired Certifications & Qualifications
- Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent professional experience.
- Relevant certifications such as ISTQB Advanced/Expert, Agile testing certifications, ScrumMaster/Kanban certifications, or Duck Creek/Guidewire certifications (if available).
- Playwright training or proven experience in implementing Playwright at scale is highly desirable.
Success Criteria & KPIs
- Reduced production defects associated with upgraded components and integrations.
Increased automation coverage across critical business and technical flows, demonstrating tangible automation ROI.
- On‑time completion of regression cycles and successful cutover rehearsals with minimal defects or rollbacks.
- Effective mitigation of testing risks and timely stakeholder sign‑off for releases.
- Improved feedback loops through CI‑driven continuous validation and quality gates.
Typical Deliverables
- Comprehensive test strategy and test plan.
- Automation strategy and Playwright framework implementation.
- Non‑functional testing (NFT) strategy and TDM strategy documentation.
- Test schedules, estimates, resource plans, and traceability matrices.
- Test cases, automated test suites, and environment/data preparation scripts.
- Regular dashboards and reports on test progress, risks, defects, and quality.
Personal Attributes
- Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills with an engineering‑first mindset.
- Excellent communication skills with the ability to articulate technical risks in business terms.
- Collaborative and influential leadership style across cross‑functional and vendor teams.
- Resilient, adaptable, and able to thrive in high‑pressure transformation environments.
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