Manager - Testing [T500-28997]

Talent500 is hiring for one of its clients.

Who are we: Core Insurance Platforms (CIP) is Zurich’s global capability responsible for building, running, and evolving core insurance technology. We set a unified, scalable operating model—covering governance, standards, architecture, service delivery, and reuse—so our business units can deliver at speed and scale. CIP is the strategic steward of Zurich’s Guidewire ecosystem, aligning platform roadmaps to business strategy while driving stability, modernization, reduced supplier dependency, and long term cost efficiency. India delivery center is one of our global delivery and capability hub. We bring together experts in AI, engineering, analysis, quality, and architecture to deliver product & process solutions, application run services, change and transformation initiatives, and centralized platform services across both on prem and Guidewire Cloud environments. Our teams operate from multiple global delivery centers, supporting Zurich’s business units worldwide.

Test Manager – Actuarial Calculation Platform Zurich Insurance | Hyderabad, India

Our Opportunity:

• Zurich Insurance is building a dedicated testing capability in Hyderabad for its

Actuarial Calculation Platform , a critical global system supporting

IFRS 17 and Solvency II compliance . The platform processes high-volume actuarial data across calculation, discounting, and reporting pipelines and is undergoing a major cloud migration.

• The

Senior Test Manager will be the most senior testing leader in the India team, responsible for establishing and leading the testing function, managing a team of Actuarial Testers, defining the end-to-end testing strategy, enforcing quality governance, and acting as the primary India testing contact for global stakeholders.

• This is primarily a

people leadership and test governance role , requiring strong expertise in data-heavy testing, SQL-based validation, release management, and quality assurance within a regulated environment.

Key Responsibilities: People Management & Leadership:

• Directly manage, mentor, develop, and performance-manage a team of Actuarial Testers in Hyderabad.
• Build and strengthen the testing capability through hiring, onboarding, capability development, and workforce planning.
• Set team quality standards, manage workloads, conduct regular one-to-ones and performance reviews.
• Coordinate testing activities across global and geo-dispersed teams.
• Identify resource gaps and maintain staffing plans aligned with sprint and release cycles.

Test Strategy, Governance & Release Management:

• Define and own the end-to-end

Test Strategy covering SIT, UAT, regression, and release testing.

• Establish and enforce strong quality governance, audit trails, documentation, and testing standards.
• Maintain complete traceability from requirements through test cases, defects, and closure.
• Define and track key metrics including execution progress, defect density, defect aging, test coverage, and regression pass rates.
• Provide structured, data-driven test status reporting to senior stakeholders.
• Own release readiness and provide evidence-based

go/no-go recommendations .

• Identify risks early, escalate proactively, and ensure deviations are formally documented with appropriate risk sign-off.
• Drive lessons learned and continuous improvement after major releases.

Data Testing & Technical Oversight:

• Own the testing approach for data-heavy actuarial calculation and reporting pipelines.
• Ensure numerical accuracy, data integrity, transformation correctness, and pipeline equivalence.
• Define and manage test datasets for actuarial calculation scenarios.
• Oversee advanced SQL-based data validation, calculation verification, and defect investigation.
• Ensure testing covers scenarios such as null handling, schema evolution, late-arriving data, backfills, and partition logic.
• Lead testing for cloud migration programmes, validating data integrity and calculation accuracy across environments.
• Continuously improve automation and regression testing coverage using modern testing and scripting frameworks.

Stakeholder Management:

• Act as the primary India testing contact for Product Owners, architects, Release Managers, and global delivery teams.
• Align testing milestones with sprint and release schedules.
• Provide honest, evidence-backed assessments of release quality and readiness.
• Support audit and regulatory reviews by maintaining complete test evidence packs.
• Collaborate with global Test Managers to share best practices and lessons learned.

Essential Skills & Experience:

• 8+ years of software testing/QA experience.
• At least

3–5 years of Test Management experience , including direct people management.

• Experience leading end-to-end testing programmes in

financial services or other regulated environments .

• Strong expertise in

data testing, pipeline validation, and numerical/calculation validation .

• Advanced

SQL skills for test data preparation, validation, defect investigation, and result verification.

• Strong experience in

test governance, audit trails, compliance, and test evidence management .

• Proven people leadership, including performance management and team development.
• Experience working with global, geo-dispersed teams across multiple time zones.
• ISTQB CTAL-TM (Test Manager) certification or equivalent.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including presenting test status and go/no-go recommendations to senior stakeholders.

Preferred Skills:

• Databricks, Delta Lake, Azure Data Factory, and Azure DevOps.
• Azure and/or AWS cloud platforms.
• Python for test automation, data comparison, and regression validation.
• Experience with cloud-to-cloud migrations or large-scale data platform transformations.
• Exposure to actuarial platforms,

IFRS 17 , and

Solvency II .

• Familiarity with AI-assisted testing approaches.

Technical Skills:

• Azure DevOps / Azure Test Plans – test management, defect tracking, pipeline monitoring, and release management.
• Advanced SQL – data validation and calculation verification.
• Cloud data platforms – Databricks, Delta Lake, data transformation and validation.
• Python – automation and regression/data comparison.
• Azure and/or AWS .
• Test metrics, reporting, dashboards, and quality governance tools.

Ideal Candidate Profile: The ideal candidate is a

strong people leader and Test Manager , rather than purely a hands-on tester. They should be highly governance-focused, comfortable managing audit and compliance requirements, and capable of taking ownership of release quality. They must also be

data-literate , comfortable validating large datasets and numerical outputs using SQL, and able to lead testing for complex data pipelines and cloud migration programmes.

In short: This is a Test Management role requiring strong people leadership, test governance, data testing/SQL expertise, release ownership, and experience working within regulated financial services environments.