QA Lead/SME-Annuity Policy Administration Systems

Job Title :QA Lead/SME-Annuity Policy Administration Systems (ALIP OR FAST OR any other Annuity Policy Admin products)
Remote work is ok with travel needs

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.