Job Summary
The Test Lead will own end-to-end quality assurance for a microservices-based payments processing platform enabling Straight-Through Processing (STP) and Non-STP flows. The role requires deep payments domain expertise, strong leadership to manage a 30-member team, hands-on testing knowledge, and the ability to define and deliver a robust testing strategy across API, UI, and automation layers.The Test Lead will be responsible for planning, estimation, strategy, environment readiness, stakeholder communication, and driving high-quality releases with strong focus on reliability, resilience, and compliance.
Key Responsibilities
Key Responsibilities
- Test Leadership & Delivery Ownership
- Lead and manage a team of 30 QA engineers (manual testers, automation engineers, domain SMEs).
- Own test delivery across multiple microservices, ensuring on-time and high-quality releases.
- Define detailed test plans, traceability matrices, schedules, and risk mitigation plans.
- Provide daily governance, progress tracking, defect triage, and reporting to stakeholders.
- Drive end-to-end SIT, UAT support, regression, performance, and production readiness testing.
- Test Strategy & Planning
- Develop and maintain test strategy for STP & Non-STP payments processing.
- Create test coverage for API-driven microservices as well as UI channels.
- Establish frameworks for functional, integration, contract, data reconciliation, and E2E flow validation.
- Incorporate negative scenarios, failover, resiliency and idempotency validations for microservices.
- Align test processes with DevOps, CI/CD, and cloud-native architecture.
- Functional & Domain Expertise (Payments SME)
- Act as the Payments SME for the QA team with deep understanding of:
- Cross-border payments, SWIFT, ISO 20022
- Clearing/settlement flows
- STP validations, repair rules, exception handling
- Sanctions, compliance, routing, cut-offs
- Non-STP workflows & repair queues
- Guide team on interpreting requirements, field mappings, payment messages, and use cases.
- Review test scenarios and ensure complete functional coverage.
- API, Microservices & UI Testing
- Lead validation of microservices including:
- REST APIs
- Event-driven flows (Kafka or similar)
- Orchestrations & asynchronous processing
- Ensure robust API test automation and contract testing using industry tools.
- Oversee UI testing for operational dashboards and repair/exception screens.
- Validate integrations with downstream/ upstream systems (core banking, AML, screening, liquidity, etc.).
- Test Automation & Framework Governance
- Review and enhance automation frameworks (Java/Selenium/RestAssured/Karate/Cypress/others).
- Drive automation strategy for regression, smoke, API contract, and UI tests.
- Review automation scripts for coding standards, maintainability, and coverage.
- Ensure integration of automation packs into CI/CD pipelines.
- Increase test automation maturity and reduce manual regression cycles.
- People Leadership & Mentoring
- Mentor and upskill team members on payments domain, automation, and test techniques.
- Conduct code reviews, scenario reviews, and domain training sessions.
- Manage team allocation, performance evaluation, and competency development.
- Build a strong culture of quality, accountability, and continuous improvement.
- Stakeholder Management & Communication
- Work closely with Product Owners, Business Analysts, Architects, and Engineering leads.
- Facilitate defect triage meetings and ensure timely closure.
- Provide transparent status reporting on quality metrics, risks, and dependencies.
- Represent QA in release approvals, go/no-go meetings, and production cutovers.
- Governance, Compliance & Quality Controls
- Ensure adherence to internal QA standards, audit controls, and regulatory guidelines.
- Maintain documentation – test strategies, reports, risk logs, and sign-off artefacts.
- Support production verification, incident analysis, and continuous improvement initiatives.
Skills And Experience
Technical Skills
- Strong experience in testing microservices, REST APIs, event-driven architectures.
- Hands-on experience with API testing tools (Postman, RestAssured, Karate, etc.).
- Strong understanding of UI testing & test automation using Selenium/WebDriver.
- Experience with DevOps tools – Jenkins, Git, CI/CD pipelines.
- Strong SQL knowledge for data validation and reconciliation.
Domain Expertise
- 8–12+ years of experience in Payment Systems Testing.
- Strong knowledge of STP, Non-STP, cross-border/RTGS/NEFT/ACH flows.
- Good understanding of ISO 20022, SWIFT MT/MX formats.
Leadership Skills
- Proven ability to lead teams of 20+ people.
- Strong planning, estimation, and delivery management capability.
- Excellent communication, stakeholder handling, and decision-making skills.
Domain: Banking – Payments (Cross-Border, Domestic, High-Value & Retail Payments)Technology Stack: Microservices, APIs, UI, Test AutomationTeam Size: 30-member blended team (Automation + Manual + SMEs)
About Standard Chartered
We're an international bank, nimble enough to act, big enough for impact. For more than 170 years, we've worked to make a positive difference for our clients, communities, and each other. We question the status quo, love a challenge and enjoy finding new opportunities to grow and do better than before. If you're looking for a career with purpose and you want to work for a bank making a difference, we want to hear from you. You can count on us to celebrate your unique talents and we can't wait to see the talents you can bring us.Our purpose, to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, together with our brand promise, to be here for good are achieved by how we each live our valued behaviours. When you work with us, you'll see how we value difference and advocate inclusion.
Together We
- Do the right thing and are assertive, challenge one another, and live with integrity, while putting the client at the heart of what we do
- Never settle, continuously striving to improve and innovate, keeping things simple and learning from doing well, and not so well
- Are better together, we can be ourselves, be inclusive, see more good in others, and work collectively to build for the long term
What We Offer
In line with our Fair Pay Charter,
we offer a competitive salary and benefits to support your mental, physical, financial and social wellbeing.
- Core bank funding for retirement savings, medical and life insurance, with flexible and voluntary benefits available in some locations.
- Time-off including annual leave, parental/maternity (20 weeks), sabbatical (12 months maximum) and volunteering leave (3 days), along with minimum global standards for annual and public holiday, which is combined to 30 days minimum.
- Flexible working options based around home and office locations, with flexible working patterns.
- Proactive wellbeing support through Unmind, a market-leading digital wellbeing platform, development courses for resilience and other human skills, global Employee Assistance Programme, sick leave, mental health first-aiders and all sorts of self-help toolkits
- A continuous learning culture to support your growth, with opportunities to reskill and upskill and access to physical, virtual and digital learning.
- Being part of an inclusive and values driven organisation, one that embraces and celebrates our unique diversity, across our teams, business functions and geographies - everyone feels respected and can realise their full potential.
