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Head of QA
1 year ago
ABOUT SPLASH DAMAGE
We believe that games play better with friends. For more than 20 years, we’ve been creating team-based multiplayer experiences that have entertained tens of millions of players all over the world and forged countless new friendships along the way.
Our studio culture is rooted in our open, friendly, and collaborative environment. Our games are made by people from all over the world, from our entry-level Fresh Talent hires to industry veterans, and we believe that fostering that diverse culture is the best way to build both our games and our studio. We have won numerous awards, including a ‘World-Class’ accreditation by Best Companies and being named one of the UK’s 100 Best Large Companies to work for.
Our offices are based in Bromley, UK, and our teams have access to progressive working patterns that work for them.
Benefits:
We offer a comprehensive benefits package for you and your family, including:
- On-site and Hybrid working patterns help us spend the right amount of time together
- Substantial performance-related pay system on top of your basic compensation, along with enhanced pension contributions and our life assurance scheme
- Bespoke VISA and relocation packages for you and your family, with support from our team throughout the whole process
- 25 days of holiday and 8 Bank Holidays a year, plus our annual studio closure between Christmas and New Year’s
- Private Medical and Dental Cover for you and your family, along with a 24/7 digital GP service
- Extensive Mental Health support, with Line Manager Mental Health training, a group of Mental Health First-Aiders, and on-site or remote counselling
- Our bespoke Learning and Development course framework to help you grow as an employee, manager, and leader
- Industry-leading fully paid 30 weeks maternity leave & 10 weeks paternity leave
The Role
The Head of QA is a senior position within our organisation who defines the QA strategy and approach for all our company’s products. The role requires strategic thinking and planning, providing expertise throughout the entire development life cycle of each product at Splash Damage, and ensuring quality assessments are baked into every phase.
This role is a natural progression from a QA Manager position; therefore, you must have a proven track record of building high performing QA teams, managing the function, and being an advocate for the department. You will be taking responsibility for ensuring all development tasks meet quality criteria through test planning, test execution, quality assurance, and issue tracking.
Responsibilities
- Defining the QA strategy, approach, and execution across our projects in development.
- Coaching and directing the QA Leadership Team; providing clear objectives, as well as agreeing action areas (where support is needed).
- Providing leadership and technical expertise to the studio within Test Automation and Quality Assurance.
- Overseeing interviews, inductions, training, and performance evaluations for all QA Leads.
- Ensuring all development teams adhere to our principles, guidelines, and best practices for Quality Assurance.
- Working with Production and other departments to ensure all projects are shipped on time, and to the highest quality.
- Developing a roadmap for building required test expertise where necessary while working with Production, HR, and Recruitment to ensure all QA resourcing needs are clear and fulfilled at all times.
- Identifying all QA requirements and ensure your department is accurately represented.
- Building and fostering good working relationships with outsourcing partners to ensure necessary support functions are in place. E.g., compatibility testing, standards compliance.
- Usage of bug tracking tools to analyse and understand key metrics to inform stakeholders and facilitate decision making at all levels.
- Defining and implementing critical knowledge transfer and communication processes with internal and external teams.
- Defining and implementing metrics, reporting mechanisms, and project/test management methodologies.
- Continually improve the operational efficiency and effectiveness of the QA effort by assessing current quality assurance practices and incorporating new strategies.
- Be an internal advocate and spokesperson for all things QA. Clearly communicate issues, risks, concerns, and successes to stakeholders.
- Helping guide our investments into the right tooling and infrastructure for all QA areas.
- Holding Production and Development teams to account with late deliverables to QA.
- Provides actionable data to inform decision making when driving quality across the organisation.
- Coordinates with our external QA partners; ensuring our internal teams are providing suitable onboarding with test plan direction, OFT documents, TFC guidance, etc.
- Helps leadership to build strong, long-term QA plans for the business; integrating Onsite QA Analysts focused on defect prevention and containment, Quality Engineering delivering automation and tools, and Offsite QA providing Blackbox test coverage – as well as Beta Testing in the Live environment.
Essential Skills and Experience
- At least 5 years’ managerial experience, with at least 3 directly with QA leadership teams.
- With a minimum of 5 years’ experience, and 2 shipped titles from start to finish, in a QA lead capacity on Triple-A titles.
- QA management experience across multiple projects, inhouse and offshore, with familiarity coordinating distributed QA teams.
- Strong leadership with proven experience implementing and shaping a company’s QA processes and strategies.
- Ability to build, implement, and direct quality assurance principles.
- Able to communicate across all levels of management and peers within the organisation.
- Adept at motivating and inspiring their department, recognising potential talent, and bring out the best in each individual.
- Proactive, strong-minded, and assertive (when needed).
- Excellent knowledge of Risk Management, Risk Identification, and Risk Based Testing.
- Be an advocate for Quality Assurance, continuous improvement, and industry recognised Best Practices.
- Strong communication skills with all the key stakeholders to ensure the QA vision is understood and implemented correctly.
- Experience with Live Operations and Games as a Service from a quality assurance perspective.
- Play Testing and Usability Testing experience including methods for capturing actionable KPI data.
- Strong customer focus both in terms of development partners and end users.
- Effective conflict management; able to remain fair when dealing with sensitive situations.
- Familiarity with Compliance, Certification, and Submission requirements for console platforms; ideally Sony and Microsoft.
- Experience with QA localisation, with language integration testing knowledge with internal and external partners.
Splash Damage is an equal opportunity employer. We believe our teams create better work when they have a range of perspectives to draw from, and we are committed to creating an inclusive working environment that celebrates diversity.
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