SeaSpin

Note: This position replaces the previously posted "Quality Assurance Manager (Temporary)" position.

KUALI STUDENT QUALITY MANAGER

The University of Washington (UW) is proud to be one of the nation’s premier educational and research institutions. Our people are the most important asset in our pursuit of achieving excellence in education, research, and community service. Our staff not only enjoys outstanding benefits and professional growth opportunities, but also an environment noted for diversity, community involvement, intellectual excitement, artistic pursuits, and natural beauty.

The Office of Information Management (OIM) at the University of Washington (UW) develops and supports enterprise business applications for the University and is currently seeking a KUALI STUDENT QUALITY MANAGER
to ensure that the Kuali Student software exceeds industry norms for accuracy, reliability and scalability.  The Kuali Foundation (http://kuali.org/), a partnership among higher education institutions across the world, is developing a comprehensive suite of open, modular, distributed and community-built administrative software.  Products currently in development include Kuali Financial Systems (KFS), Kuali Research Administration (KRA), Kuali Student (KS) and Kuali Rice (Rice).  The Quality Assurance Manager is responsible for managing the quality assurance activities for the project, including developing the quality strategy, defining the project quality plan, and managing the project quality activities. The incumbent will champion practices that lead to a high level of quality in project deliverables.

The Kuali Student project is a complex, challenging project being conducted across institutions in distributed geographical locations.  Teams work in a virtual environment, meeting via video conference, Skype audio conference, Breeze meeting rooms and collaborating and sharing work on Confluence wiki.  In this environment, it is essential that all team members be excellent communicators.

The Quality Assurance Manager works with the project leads to ensure that quality standards are defined for processes, tools and methodologies used by the project community, and is responsible for ensuring that the quality standards and practices are followed. The incumbent works directly with the project teams to ensure that all released software maintains the quality standards as well as traceability for documentation and release management. The incumbent is responsible for management and organization of all quality assurance activities including strategy, planning, test execution, and tools. The Quality Assurance Manager sets an example for the project community by demonstrating solid quality practices through his or her work and serves as the Kuali Student project’s main advocate for attention to quality assurance throughout the software development life cycle.

Duties
Direct the project quality strategy and planning:
•     Work with the project team leads to establish time tables and agree on a quality plan for the software.
•     Engage and lead project team and Kuali community members in the development of acceptable technical quality standards, tools, and procedures.
•     Ensure that the quality strategy is documented, communicated and adequate to meet agreed quality levels for the application.
•     Collaborate with project team and Kuali community members to evolve and improve the quality strategy to promote continuous improvement in project deliverables and processes.
•     Work with development teams to drive quality assurance methods into the earliest phases of the software development lifecycle.

Implement the project quality strategy:
•     Work with management and the project team to implement the project quality strategy, and monitor the project’s adherence to it.
•     Direct the scheduling and execution of project-level quality assurance activities.
•     Establish systems and tools to report and track defects throughout the development life cycle. Evaluate defects found during reviews and audits to determine root cause, corrective action, and preventive actions.  Regularly report these results to the project community.
•     Oversee selection, implementation, and maintenance of QA tools
•     Critically review functional and business requirements for software. Collaborate with the project teams to ensure that product requirements are sufficiently defined to allow the creation of test plans and scripts.
•     Work with Technical Architects to establish plans for external architectural design reviews; manage execution of the reviews
•     Participate in design and development activities (including code reviews) to ensure that the published SOA design and development standards are followed by project development teams.
•     Create a mechanism for excellent traceability for testing, releases, documentation, and communications, and participate in its implementation.
•     Establish templates, models and/or tools for test cases and scripts.
•     Collaboratively define testing strategies and procedures that ensure that software is tested thoroughly and effectively. Ensure that these processes are followed by all development teams and testing coordinators.
•     Review all test plans prepared by development teams and testing coordinators to ensure their completeness.
•     Work with the Use Case and Applications Design Teams to ensure traceability of test cases to requirements, and to ensure that all requirements are tested
•     Work with development leads to evaluate unit testing coverage; ensure that any coverage gaps are documented and addressed; perform unit test code reviews.
•     Analyze scripts used in regression testing and ensure that regression testing is working properly, identifying anomalies to the configuration manager.
•     Analyze software build and continuous integration procedures.
•     Work with testing coordinators and the project manager to ensure that testing of functional areas is complete, tracked and on-schedule.
•     Work with performance testers to ensure that performance testing and test results meet performance standards and are communicated and documented.
•     Participate in testing activities to ensure that the test results meet defined acceptance criteria.
•     Work with management to organize and/or conduct additional audits and reviews of project products and processes, including project artifacts, security, service contracts, project management practices, and development/deployment processes.
•     Train business and technical subject matter experts to perform quality reviews and prepare quality review reports.
•     Manage other defined software quality assurance activities in accordance with project standards and procedures.

License management and intellectual property reviews:
•     Responsible for ensuring license management strategy is followed
•     Conduct intellectual property reviews to ensure compliance

As a UW employee, you will enjoy generous benefits and work/life programs. 

Requirements: Minimum Education
Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field.

Minimum Work Experience

• Minimum 4 years experience performing progressively more complex and responsible software quality management activities and implementing quality procedures and policies in a complex computing environment, particularly developing and implementing a quality program for an institution or a large project.
  
• Experience performing complex information technology and technical management activities, with a  comprehensive understanding of the underlying technologies.
  
• Demonstrated ability to create, implement, and manage a quality strategy for a large and complex software project within a distributed team environment.  Ability to manage in a matrix management environment.
  
• Solid communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to speak and write about technical issues for both technical and non-technical audiences.
  
• Demonstrated ability to manage a diverse range of activities in a very visible and pressured environment, exercising independent judgment in resolving problems.
  
• Demonstrated ability to quickly learn and apply new techniques, technologies and methodologies.
  
• Possesses a thorough knowledge of quality procedures and policies.
  
• Experience with testing methodologies and with testing enterprise applications.
  
• Excellent organization and collaboration skills.     

Equivalent education/experience will substitute for all minimum qualifications except when there are legal requirements, such as a license/certification/registration.

Desired

• Experience with Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).
  
• Experience designing, developing or testing enterprise Java applications.
  
• Experience with the Jira issue tracking system.
  
• Experience with open source testing tools (e.g. JUnit).
  
• Experience with agile development techniques.
  
• Experience with higher education Student Services Systems.
  
• The ideal candidate will have a strong familiarity with the Kuali application, with Kuali Rice, and the ability to work as a team member as well as independently.

Condition of Employment: This position contributes in a collaborative team work environment.  Collaboration is supported through a shared space working environment, ad hoc meetings focused on problem-solving, and the use of a variety of communication tools.   Responsibility to work varied hours as needed to meet project deadlines and to accomplish work assignments on which others’ activities depend.  Some travel required.

This is a project-funded position.

A satisfactory outcome from a criminal background verification is required prior to hire.

Application Process:

Part of the application process for this position includes completing an on-line cover letter assessment as well as the Employment Eligibility Assessment to obtain additional information that will be used in the evaluation process.  The assessment(s) will appear on your screen for you to complete as soon as you select "Apply to this Position" on this job announcement. Once you begin the assessment, it must be completed at that time. If you select to take it later, it will appear on your "My Jobs" page to take when you are ready. Please note that your application will not be reviewed, and you will not be considered for this position until the assessment is complete.

The University of Washington is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. To request disability accommodation in the application process, contact the Disability Services Office at 206.543.6450 / 206.543.6452 (tty) or dso@u.washington.edu.

To apply for this position, visit

https://uwhires.admin.washington.edu/eng/candidates/default.cfm?szCategory=JobProfile&szOrderID=53892&szlocationID=88