Quality Assurance Test Lead

Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group (MSIG) is one of the world’s top ten property/casualty insurance carriers with over 38,000 employees worldwide. MSIG insures large multinational and domestic companies, and offers comprehensive global insurance programs.  Our US subsidiary, Mitsui Sumitomo Marine Management (MSMM), currently has an opportunity available for a Quality Assurance Test Lead in our Warren, NJ office.

Summary Responsible for defining and executing the testing strategies for all IT related projects.  Supports multiple project teams to identify required test resources, perform testing and oversee others in the execution of test plans, including collaboration with the business units on performing User Acceptance Testing (UAT).  Works with senior IT leadership to lead and build Quality Assurance teams on IT Projects.  The position develops and maintains documentation relevant to test plans, results & metrics, issues and remediation.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Other duties may be assigned.

• Develops testing strategies and plans for systems development and COTS systems implementations.
• Works with Project Managers to develop and integrate test plans into overall project plans.
• Develops testing scenarios and expected results relative to specific software specifications.
• Ensures traceability to requirements in test plans and results.
• Performs, unit, integration, regression, system and operational readiness testing per test plans.
• Develops and executes UAT testing including coordinating and assisting business and functional areas in the identification of test personnel and oversight of end-users testing.
• Maintains test scripts, documentation and test logs.
• Communicates issues and verifies issue resolution.
• Builds QA Teams with capabilities to support IT projects, also mentors QA team members.
• Manages outside QA resources.
• Define QA processes based on best practices.
• Develops and communicates workarounds to known system problems.
• Generates structured status charts throughout testing phases to monitor test progress through to completion.
• Rapidly responds to re-test code fixes delivered by software vendors and programming staff.
• Introduce organization to automated testing methods and tools.
• Creates application documentation to assist in the support and training of users.
• Maintains historical record of test data to be accessed as necessary.

  Supervisory Responsibilities                                             

       This is an individual contributor role with responsibility for overseeing project team members in the planning and execution of QA testing on projects.  Opportunity to build in-house QA capabilities & team.

Education and/or Experience                                           

• Bachelor's degree (B. A.) in Computer Science or related field of study from four-year college or university.
• Five to seven years of Quality Assurance Testing experience, with 3-5 years in a QA Lead role.
• Prior Property & Casualty (P&C) Insurance experience is required.
• Experience working in both Agile and Waterfall environments.

Qualifications:                                            

• Understanding of information systems structure and design including user Interface, application and database structures and design.
• Understanding of the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and related methodologies and techniques.
• Experience translating business requirements and systems / application specifications into test strategies and plans.
• Through knowledge of the test hierarchy and related methods, including unit, integration, regression, system, performance testing and operational readiness testing.
• Have experience formulating application test strategies and plans, scripts, cases, data, and other testing documentation.
• Have experience testing application functionality, navigation, consistency, usability, and performance to identify and report defects and issues.
• Experience planning and executing tests through the entire testing hierarchy and experience testing both custom development and COTS applications.
• Experience with automated testing tools including performance testing tools.
• Have experience analyzing detailed test results.
• Have the ability to work collaboratively with cross-functional teams on issue prioritization and resolution.
• Possess oral communication skills sufficient to communicate effectively with project managers, programmers, other technical personnel, end users, and business and IT management.
• Possess written communication skills to create test plans, scripts, test cases, other test documentation, issue reports, and test results.
• Possess ability to prioritize work assignments and work to established deadlines.
• Have knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel and MS Project to maintain plan documents and spreadsheets containing basic formulas and formatting.
• Have experience with end user applications and knowledge sufficient to define user interface tests and acceptance criteria.
• Have the ability to work as part of a team as well as independently.

NOTE: This is a full-time position, not a consulting assignment opportunity. Also, the organization does not provide sponsorship.

Other Skills and Abilities Required:

Position requires flexibility occasional evenings and/or weekends for testing applications preparing to Go Live.