IT Quality Assurance & Business Analysis Manager

Manage a Quality Assurance and Business Analysis team that ensures business process and software application solutions are researched, planned, implemented and tested. Provide best practices, standards and strategic direction to ensure these operations are effective and efficient across IT and business teams throughout the bank. Software implementations and updates are primarily vendor-supplied although internally developed software must also be supported., * Manage Quality Assurance and Business Analysis team and coach direct reports in their responsibilities to:

• Work with subject-matter experts to research and document business processes, applications, interfaces, regulations, requirements and testing needs.
• Complete project management artifacts from project discovery to closure, developing business-process and technical improvements.
• Plan software testing and coverage with subject-matter experts.
• Write, run and automate software tests where automation provides clear value, while enabling subject-matter experts to create and run tests to ensure effective and efficient testing.
• Ensure projects meet schedules, regulations and business needs effectively and efficiently.

• Assist Director and CIO in defining strategy and vision for solutions analysis and testing. Keep a constant focus on bank-wide return on investment (ROI).
• Manage departmental budget planning, forecasting, and expense oversight for QA/BA team.
• Ensure best practices are employed for systems analysis and design and software testing. (e.g. effective requirements, shift-left testing, ROI evaluation, manual testing, test automation strategy, AI-assisted techniques, Scrum).
• Maintain effective, simple standards and practices for efficiency and meaningful metrics across the bank.
• Coordinate resource needs across multiple IT and business teams.
• Cultivate strong relationships within IT and with business teams.
• Support the Vendor Management process to ensure vendors properly support our needs.
• Ensure compliance, change-management, risk management and security policies are followed.
• Use metrics to justify and drive improvements for internal and vendor solutions. (e.g. defect containment/leakage).
• Guide bank teams in effective and efficient analysis and educate them on their vested need to support and test solutions.
• Communicate critical issues and status in a timely manner, with sound judgment regarding priority and risk.
• Be results-oriented, effectively delegating and seeking assistance when needed.
• Ensure workload balancing and successful delivery across the team, sometimes supporting dozens of simultaneous projects.
• Ensure clean, long-term data retention for regulatory compliance.
• Maintain regular, reliable attendance, including some regular onsite work.

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, MIS, Business Administration or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• Significant systems analysis and best practice experience (e.g. business process analysis, requirements definition, solutions design).
• Significant software testing, best practice experience (e.g. for various testing phases, testing strategy, test case writing, test execution, automation).
• Experience evaluating ROI of solutions (e.g. manual vs automation or alternate technological solutions).
• Experience with business process and testing metrics, KPIs to drive decisions and continuous improvement.
• Broad knowledge of banking and technical processes, applications and interfaces.
• Strong people-skills that drive results when there are differing abilities, motivation and viewpoints.
• Strong verbal and writing skills. Ability to analyze, synthesize and convey complex ideas to multiple levels of the organization, and experience. Demonstrated ability to influence and obtain solution buy-in., * Direct experience writing and running test automation including managing automation initiatives (e.g. automation staff, ROI evaluation, test management, environment setup, CI/CD integration, ...). JavaScript and Playwright experience highly desirable.
• Experience with various testing tools (e.g. test runners, test management tools, mocking frameworks, API testing tools, version control systems, ...).
• Direct experience with ETL, SQL and advanced reporting using tools such as Power BI.
• Experience applying AI to business analysis and software testing projects.
• Good understanding and direct experience in Scrum practices.

Compensation: $114,517 - $171,776

The compensation range represents the low and high end of the base compensation range for this position located in Spokane, WA. Actual compensation will vary and may be above or below the range based on various factors including but not limited to location, experience, and performance. This position is eligible to participate in an applicable annual bonus plan.