QA Lead Financial Markets

Job Title: QA Lead Financial Markets

Job Location: New York, New York (1 day onsite as needed)

Job Type: Contract

Understanding of trade lifecycle (Order Execution Allocation Settlement)

A global bank is seeking a highly skilled QA Lead Financial Markets. The Test Lead will bring a strong hybrid background in manual testing, automation, and UAT coordination, combined with hands-on experience in the Financial Markets domain.

This role will play a critical part in ensuring end-to-end quality assurance across the SDLC, supporting regulatory-compliant and high-impact financial applications.

This role requires strong leadership skills, hands-on testing experience, and the ability to work effectively with Business, Technology, Operations, and external vendors in a fast-paced financial services environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end testing activities across project deliveries, including System Integration Testing (SIT), User Acceptance Testing (UAT), Regression Testing, and Production Validation.
• Develop and maintain test plans, schedules, and testing governance artifacts.
• Coordinate testing activities across multiple teams, business stakeholders, vendors, and dependent applications.
• Define test scope, entry/exit criteria, test scenarios, and test execution approaches.
• Perform functional, manual, and exploratory testing to validate business workflows
• Execute and maintain regression and sanity test suites
• Ensure traceability between requirements, test cases, and defects
• Drive risk identification, mitigation planning, and issue management throughout the testing lifecycle.
• Ensure business sign-off and production readiness
• Work closely with Dev, BA, and business teams to prioritize and resolve issues
• Ensure proper test evidence and audit documentation for compliance requirements
• Collaborate with Product Owners, Business Analysts, Developers, and Ops teams
• Support Agile ceremonies (Sprint planning, backlog refinement, demos)
• Communicate test progress, risks, and dependencies clearly to stakeholders
• Develop and maintain automation scripts using tools such as Selenium / Ingenious / similar frameworks
• Participate in automation framework design and enhancement
• Execute automated tests within CI/CD pipelines to support continuous testing

Required Skills & Experience

• 6+ years of experience in software testing (manual + automation)
• Strong knowledge of SDLC, STLC, and Agile methodologies
• Experience with test management tools (ADO, JIRA, etc.)
• Hands-on experience in UI/API automation tools (Selenium, Playwright, Ingenious, etc.)
• Understanding of CI/CD pipelines and continuous testing practices
• Proven experience in UAT coordination and stakeholder engagement
• Strong skills in test case design, defect lifecycle management, and reporting

Domain Expertise:

• Experience in Financial Markets / Capital Markets domain
• Understanding of trade lifecycle (Order Execution Allocation Settlement)
• Exposure to regulatory/reporting systems (e.g., CFTC reporting, trade validation)
• Experience with data validation / file-based testing (e.g., trade or regulatory outputs)
• Knowledge of automation for data reconciliation or reporting systems
• Familiarity with banking messaging systems (MQ, APIs, etc.)

Key Competencies:

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management
• Ability to work in cross-functional, global teams
• High attention to quality, traceability, and audit readiness
• Improves automation coverage and efficiency
• Ensures audit-ready, compliant testing in regulated environments
• Drives high-quality, predictable delivery outcomes across releases