Senior Test Lead (12 15 years / Banking)

Role Summary

We are looking for an experienced Senior Test Lead with 12–15 years of software testing experience and strong exposure to the Banking & Financial Services domain. The candidate will be responsible for leading end-to-end testing across multiple projects, defining test strategies and processes, driving test automation, and ensuring quality delivery within an Agile/Sprint-based environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end testing activities across multiple banking applications and projects.
• Define and own Test Strategy, Test Plans, test estimation, test approach, entry/exit criteria and release readiness.
• Lead Functional, System Integration (SIT), Regression, End-to-End and UAT support activities.
• Establish and continuously improve testing processes, standards, governance and best practices.
• Provide technical leadership for test automation, including defining automation strategy and framework approach.
• Guide the design, implementation and enhancement of reusable automation frameworks for UI, API and regression testing.
• Identify suitable automation candidates and drive improvements in automation coverage and testing efficiency.
• Lead testing activities within Agile/Scrum delivery, including sprint planning, backlog refinement, daily stand-ups, reviews and retrospectives.
• Manage testing across multiple projects/workstreams, including resource planning, test schedules, dependencies, risks and delivery commitments.
• Lead defect management and triage, including defect prioritisation, root-cause discussions and closure tracking.
• Define and monitor testing KPIs such as test execution progress, defect trends, test coverage, automation coverage and defect leakage.
• Lead and mentor Test Analysts, Senior Testers and Automation Engineers.
• Work closely with Business Analysts, Developers, Product Owners, Architects, DevOps teams and business stakeholders.
• Provide clear testing status, quality assessments, risks and recommendations to project and senior management.

Required Skills & Experience

• 12–15 years of overall software testing experience, with at least 4–5 years in Test Lead/Senior Test Lead responsibilities.
• Strong experience delivering testing for Banking & Financial Services applications.
• Proven experience leading multiple projects/workstreams and testing teams.
• Strong knowledge of test strategy, test planning, estimation, execution, defect management and QA governance.
• Strong experience with Agile/Scrum and sprint-based delivery models.
• Good experience in test automation strategy and automation framework design/implementation.
• Working knowledge of automation tools such as Selenium, Playwright, Cypress or equivalent.
• Good understanding of API testing using Postman, REST Assured or equivalent.
• Good understanding of SQL and database/backend validation.
• Exposure to automation integration with CI/CD pipelines such as Jenkins, GitLab or Azure DevOps.
• Experience with test/defect management tools such as Jira, Xray, Zephyr, ALM or Azure DevOps.
• Strong experience in test metrics, reporting, risk management and release quality assessment.
• Excellent leadership, stakeholder management, communication and problem-solving skills