We are looking for a Senior Test Delivery Manager / Test Program Director to lead the quality engineering and testing delivery for a large-scale telecom transformation program. The role requires strong leadership in managing complex testing portfolios, large, distributed teams, and multi-vendor ecosystems, while ensuring delivery excellence and financial discipline. The leader will be responsible for end-to-end test strategy, delivery governance, demand management, and resource optimization, while driving AI-first quality engineering practices to improve productivity, predictability, and business outcomes.
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This role will work closely with client leadership, program directors, architecture teams, and delivery partners to ensure quality objectives are achieved across all releases in the transformation program.
Key Responsibilities:
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Test Program Leadership:
- Own and drive the overall testing strategy and execution for a large telecom transformation program.
- Lead testing across multiple transformation workstreams.
- Establish quality governance frameworks aligned with program milestones and release plans.
- Manage large, distributed testing teams and multiple vendor partners.
- Ensure testing delivery meets fixed bid contractual commitments related to scope, cost, timelines, and quality.
- Drive cost optimization, productivity improvement, and margin protection through automation and AI-led efficiencies.
- Manage program-level testing budgets, forecasting, and resource utilization.
- Establish strong governance for scope management, change control, and risk mitigation.
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Demand Management & Resource Planning:
- Manage testing demand across multiple workstreams and releases in alignment with program priorities.
- Lead capacity planning, resource forecasting, and skill-based allocation to ensure optimal utilization.
- Establish structured resource scheduling models aligned with release cycles and delivery milestones.
- Collaborate with leadership teams to address demand-supply gaps, ramp-up planning, and skill transformation initiatives.
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AI-First Quality Engineering:
- Drive adoption of AI-enabled testing across the testing lifecycle.
- Leverage AI agents and intelligent automation to accelerate testing cycles and improve quality.
- Define AI adoption roadmap for quality engineering within the program.
- Build a highly automated testing ecosystem across functional and non-functional testing.
- Drive shift-left and shift-right quality practices to enable faster feedback loops.
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Stakeholder & Client Engagement:
- Act as the primary QA leader interfacing with senior client stakeholders.
- Provide strategic guidance on quality engineering practices and transformation initiatives.
- Facilitate program-level quality reviews, defect governance forums, and release readiness discussions.
- Provide executive dashboards and quality insights to program leadership.
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Risk & Quality Management:
- Establish proactive mechanisms for risk identification, quality assurance, and defect prevention.
- Implement predictive quality metrics and analytics using AI-based insights.
- Ensure strong governance for all testing lifecycle activities.
Required Skills & Experience:
- 18+ years of experience in Quality Engineering and Testing.
- 8+ years managing large transformation programs.
- Experience delivering complex telecom programs under fixed bid or outcome-based models.
- Proven leadership managing large, distributed QA teams (100+ resources).
- Telecom Domain Expertise and AI & Modern Testing experience.
- Strong program governance and stakeholder management.
- Experience managing multi-vendor delivery environments.
- Expertise in demand management, capacity planning, and workforce scheduling.
- Proven ability to drive quality transformation initiatives.
- Strong background in Agile delivery.
