Director of Quality Engineering

Director of Quality Engineering

Employment Type: Full-Time
Location: Charlotte, NC (Hybrid)

Role Description

We are seeking a highly experienced Director of Quality Engineering to lead our Fixed Income Middle and Back Office testing function. This role is responsible for defining, implementing, and governing a robust testing strategy that ensures the reliability, scalability, and compliance of post-trade processing systems across settlements, confirmations, collateral management, regulatory reporting, and risk functions.

The ideal candidate will combine deep Fixed Income product knowledge, Back Office workflow expertise, and hands-on Quality Engineering leadership to drive automation, governance, and continuous improvement initiatives.

Role Objectives
Leadership & Strategy

• Define and execute the Quality Engineering strategy for Back Office applications supporting Fixed Income trading.
• Partner with Technology, Operations, Risk, and Compliance teams to align QA initiatives with business priorities and regulatory requirements.
• Build and manage a high-performing Quality Engineering organization across manual, automation, and performance testing disciplines.

Governance & Standards

• Establish QA governance frameworks with clear accountability, traceability, and reporting across all Back Office test cycles.
• Drive adoption of test management tools such as Jira and Xray to ensure complete test coverage and defect traceability.
• Define and enforce Quality Engineering best practices, including test automation frameworks, regression coverage, and shift-left testing methodologies.

Test Execution & Coverage

• Oversee end-to-end testing for settlements, reconciliations, clearing, payments, regulatory reporting (MiFID, TRACE, CFTC), and other post-trade processes.
• Ensure testing coverage includes straight-through processing (STP), exception handling, SWIFT messaging, and integrations with custodians and clearing houses.
• Expand performance, resilience, and failover testing for high-volume transaction processing environments.

Automation & Tooling

• Drive automation strategy to improve regression efficiency, scalability, and accuracy across back-office platforms such as Calypso, Murex Back Office, and proprietary systems.
• Leverage modern test frameworks, CI/CD pipelines, and AI-driven testing capabilities to enable faster and more reliable software validation.

Metrics & Continuous Improvement

• Define and maintain key quality metrics including defect leakage, automation coverage, cycle time, and escape rate.
• Deliver executive-level reporting through dashboards using Power BI, Tableau, or similar technologies.
• Implement continuous improvement practices focused on reducing production defects and improving overall testing efficiency.

Qualifications & Skills

• 12+ years of experience in Quality Assurance and Quality Engineering, including 5+ years in a Director or Head of Quality Engineering role within Capital Markets.
• Strong background supporting Fixed Income products including Swaps, Government Bonds, Corporates, Repos, Derivatives, and OTC products.
• Deep understanding of Back Office workflows including settlements, clearing, custody, and payments.
• Demonstrated success building and scaling Quality Engineering functions in highly regulated environments.
• Proven track record implementing enterprise-scale automation strategies and QA governance frameworks.

Technical Skills

• Deep knowledge of post-trade systems and integrations including Calypso, Murex, Broadridge, Impact, GLOSS, DTCC, and SWIFT.
• Strong expertise with test automation frameworks and tools including Java, Python, Selenium, Cypress, REST and SOAP API testing, JMeter, and LoadRunner.
• Experience with DevOps and CI/CD platforms such as Jenkins, GitLab, and Azure DevOps.
• Strong data validation and reconciliation skills utilizing SQL, Excel, and reconciliation tools.

Leadership & Soft Skills

• Exceptional leadership, mentoring, and communication skills.
• Ability to engage effectively with Front Office, Middle Office, Back Office, Risk, Operations, and Regulatory stakeholders at senior levels.
• Strategic mindset combined with strong hands-on problem-solving and execution capabilities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree such as an MBA, MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or Financial Engineering.
• Prior experience within a sell-side investment bank or hedge fund Middle or Back Office environment.
• Knowledge of regulatory frameworks including Dodd-Frank, MiFID II, CFTC, and EMIR.
• Experience leveraging AI and Machine Learning for test automation and predictive QA analytics.

Success Metrics

• Successful production release of new Middle and Back Office platform implementations.
• Reduction in production defects and overall escape rates.
• Increased automation coverage and test execution reliability.
• Improved testing cycle times across major releases and platform enhancements.