Contract Test Lead - Project Petabyte TJ3

Seeking an experienced Contract Test Lead to support Project Petabyte TJ3, a high-visibility manufacturing and digital transformation initiative focused on standing up a new manufacturing facility. The project has a compressed timeline and critical readiness milestones leading into Digital Go-Live, pilot production, and full production.

This role will lead the planning, coordination, governance, and quality oversight for testing across functional, integration/SIT, end-to-end, UAT, regression, and performance/load testing activities. The ideal candidate will bring strong interpersonal skills, leadership presence, executive-level communication, and the ability to drive accountability across business, manufacturing, digital, infrastructure, MES, and application teams.

Project Context

• · Project Petabyte TJ3 supports a major TAHU manufacturing capacity expansion and new stand-up facility.
• · The testing need is driven by a new TJ3 factory, replication of the TJ2 digital/business process stack, an aggressive timeline, and the need for structured testing before go-live.
• · Testing scope includes functional testing, integration/SIT, end-to-end/UAT, regression, and performance/load testing.
• · Key project areas include associated hardware applications, MES, digital apps, infrastructure dependencies, business process scenarios, and SAP/Vault-related touchpoints.
• · Known complexity includes manufacturing data and processes, BOM flow into SAP, and multiple business rules before the process reaches final state.

Key Responsibilities1. Test Strategy, Planning, and Governance

• · Develop and maintain the overall test strategy for Project Petabyte TJ3, including scope, approach, phases, quality gates, entry/exit criteria, and evidence expectations.
• · Build a practical test plan aligned with project milestones, including Digital Go-Live, pilot production readiness, and full production readiness.
• · Establish testing governance, templates, quality checkpoints, and milestone review structure for Central Testing and project stakeholders.
• · Define and communicate testing expectations across functional, SIT, E2E, UAT, regression, and performance/load testing.
• · Create and maintain a structured test asset model in Azure DevOps Test Plans, including scenarios, test cases, execution evidence, defects, and reporting dashboards.
• · Drive traceability between business requirements, process/design flows, test scenarios, defects, and readiness decisions.
• 1. Cross-Functional Coordination and Leadership
• · Serve as the primary testing coordination lead across Central Testing, project leadership, business process owners, application teams, infrastructure teams, MES stakeholders, and performance testing resources.
• · Lead testing discussions in project forums, critical path meetings, readiness reviews, and defect triage sessions.
• · Coordinate with project teams to confirm test ownership across functional, SIT, UAT, performance, and defect resolution activities.
• · Drive accountability for test deliverables, open dependencies, blockers, risks, and mitigation plans.
• · Communicate clearly and confidently with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, including project leadership.
• · Provide concise, risk-based quality status updates for leadership review.
• · Partner with project teams to define and track environment dependencies, access needs, test data setup, and readiness blockers.
• · Help define a pragmatic approach for test data provisioning, refresh, masking where needed, and scenario-based data preparation.
• · Ensure environment and data gaps are visible in readiness reporting and risk tracking.

1. Test Design and Readiness Enablement * · Coordinate test case design for manufacturing, MES, digital applications, SAP/Vault touchpoints, and critical business process scenarios. * · Ensure test cases include clear steps, expected results, evidence requirements, data needs, and traceability. * · Partner with business users and SMEs to validate test scenarios against real manufacturing workflows. * · Support UAT preparation by helping business stakeholders understand test scope, execution expectations, and evidence requirements. * · Identify regression scenarios that can be reused or adapted from TJ2 / Coil artifacts. * · Facilitate creation of test scenarios/cases in Azure Devops.

2. Defect Management and Quality Risk Reporting * · Establish and enforce disciplined defect logging standards * · Facilitate defect triage meetings and drive resolution follow-up with application, infrastructure, MES, and business teams. * · Track quality risks, blockers, open decisions, environment issues, test data gaps, and unresolved defects. * · Escalate critical risks early with clear impact statements and recommended actions.

3. Performance and Load Testing Coordination * · Coordinate with the Performance Test Engineer to define performance testing scope, non-functional requirements, tooling approach, environment needs, and execution timeline. * · Help gather business scenarios, expected usage patterns, transaction volumes, peak load assumptions, and performance acceptance criteria. * · Ensure performance testing is planned early enough to support Digital Go-Live readiness. * · Track performance test dependencies, risks, results, findings, and remediation actions. * · Partner with stakeholders to translate performance results into quality and readiness recommendations.

• · 10+ years of QA/testing experience, including senior or lead-level responsibility in enterprise or complex program environments.
• · Proven experience leading test planning, coordination, governance, execution tracking, and readiness reporting across multiple teams.
• · Strong experience with integration testing, end-to-end testing, UAT coordination, and regression planning.
• · Hands-on experience with Azure DevOps Test Plans or similar test management tools for test case management, execution tracking, defect management, and reporting.
• · Strong communication skills with the ability to convey testing status, risks, blockers, and recommendations to technical teams, business stakeholders, and leadership.
• · Demonstrated ability to lead through influence in a matrixed project environment.
• · Strong interpersonal skills with the confidence and command presence to facilitate meetings, drive decisions, resolve ambiguity, and hold teams accountable.
• · Experience coordinating defect triage, release readiness, milestone reviews, and quality gates.
• · Ability to work with incomplete requirements, evolving timelines, and dependency-heavy project environments.
• · Strong analytical and organizational skills, with the ability to turn unclear testing needs into a structured test approach.

Preferred Skills and Experience

• · Manufacturing domain knowledge, especially shop-floor processes, production readiness, assembly operations, warehouse flows, test stands, and manufacturing process dependencies.
• · Experience testing MES, SAP, PLM, Vault, manufacturing execution, or digital manufacturing applications.
• · Experience coordinating testing for new facility launches, plant expansions, manufacturing line readiness, or digital factory programs.
• · Experience with performance/load testing coordination, including gathering NFRs, load assumptions, transaction volumes, and readiness criteria.
• · Experience working with infrastructure, network, application, security, and business process teams.
• · Familiarity with hybrid Waterfall/Agile delivery models and milestone-based project governance.

$45 - $55 an hour - Contract