QA LeadSME

QA Lead/SME-Annuity Policy Administration Systems (ALIP OR FAST OR any other Annuity Policy Admin products)

Work location: Holmdel NJ OR Bethlehem PA OR Open for remote with travel needs

This role is a senior client-facing leadership role responsible for defining governing and driving end-to-end quality assurance for Lifes Annuity Transformation initiatives. This role owns the overall quality vision test architecture and execution governance ensuring that complex annuity business scenarios financial accuracy and regulatory requirements are fully validated across the ALIP ecosystem. Acting as the single QA authority onsite the role partners closely with Guardian Life business IT actuarial and compliance stakeholders while leading offshore QA teams to deliver predictable high-quality outcomes for large-scale modernization programs.

Roles & Responsibilities

• Define and own the end-to-end QA strategy and test architecture for ALIP-based Annuity transformation programs.
• Establish quality standards governance models and best practices aligned with Guardian Life enterprise QA and risk frameworks.
• Serve as the onsite QA face-off lead managing stakeholder expectations across business IT actuarial compliance and PMO teams.
• Provide domain leadership for Annuities including Fixed and Variable Annuities riders payouts surrenders fees and annuitization scenarios.
• Validate ALIP product configuration rules transactions and integrations from a quality and business correctness standpoint.
• Own and review Master Test Plans Phase-wise Test Strategies and Release Readiness criteria.
• Govern test execution across SIT E2E Regression UAT support Parallel Runs and Dress Rehearsals.
• Ensure strong requirements-to-test traceability and proactive defect prevention.
• Lead defect triage root cause analysis and risk mitigation for high-severity and cross-system issues.
• Define and drive automation strategy for ALIP focusing on API service-level and regression automation.
• Establish test data management and data validation strategies for complex annuity contracts and financial scenarios.
• Ensure accuracy of financial calculations accounting feeds and downstream reporting validations.
• Lead and mentor offshore QA teams enabling effective handoffs standards adherence and delivery excellence.
• Provide executive-level quality metrics and dashboards highlighting risk coverage defect trends and readiness.
• Support regulatory audits compliance reviews and production readiness assessments with robust QA artifacts.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives including shift-left testing risk-based testing and Agile/Scaled Agile QE adoption.

Act as a quality transformation partner reducing cost of quality while improving speed reliability and customer outcomes