Digital Service Assurance Section Head

Role Purpose

Establish and run end-to-end quality assurance and compliance practices for SANS digital platforms, ensuring releases are safe, secure and auditable , Enable business confidence in SANS digital services by translating telemetry, audit evidence and QA outputs into governance decisions and risk-mitigating actions.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES & ACTIVITIES

Quality Assurance & Release Assurance Governance

• Define and enforce QA and release gates (functional, performance, security, operability) across platform and application releases.
• Ensure pre-prod validation; regression/performance testing and operational acceptance criteria are met before production rollout.

Compliance, Audit & Evidence Management

• Operate audit-ready processes for digital platforms: collect, validate and present evidence for internal and external audits.
• Maintain policy adherence (controls, logs, change traceability) and manage remediation plans for audit findings.

Performance, SLA & Service Quality Governance

• Own service quality frameworks: define KPIs/SLOs, monitor SLA adherence and drive corrective actions for underperformance.
• Partner with Performance teams to convert telemetry into assurance actions and preventive controls.

Security & Risk Assurance for Platforms

• Ensure QA and compliance activities for embedded infrastructure and application security checks (vulnerability scanning, configuration baselines, and secure deployments).
• Maintain risk registers for compliance/quality issues and drive remediation with architecture, infra and security teams.

Release Risk & Change Control Management

• Govern change/release policies and ensure controlled, auditable deployments (rollbacks, canary strategies, runbook readiness).
• Validate that release risks are quantified, and mitigations are in place.

Reporting & Continuous Improvement

• Report on QA outcomes, compliance status, and risk assurance updates to the Platform Infra & Ops Manager.
• Act as the governance liaison for product, engineering, security, operations and vendors driving adherence to QA and compliance standards.
• Maintain quality playbooks, audit artefacts and lead improvement initiatives to raise assurance maturity.

Policies, Processes and Procedures

• Support in monitoring day-to-day activities to ensure compliance with stipulated policies and procedures
• Contribute to the identification of opportunities for continuous improvement of systems and processes taking into account leading practices, changes in business environment, cost reduction and productivity improvement

People Management

• Actively participate in on-the-job training, mentoring and coaching of subordinates
• Provide clear direction, prioritize tasks, assign and delegate responsibility and monitor the workflow
• Promote a high-performance working environment embracing SANS’s values

QUALIFICATIONS / REQUIREMENTS

Knowledge and Experience

• Minimum 6 years of experience in a related field or equivalent is required.

Education and Certifications

• A bachelor’s degree in, Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology (IT), or equivalent is required.
• Preferable certifications in QA and testing certifications, including the ISTQB Foundation or Advanced Level, Certified Test Manager (CTM), or Certified Quality Analyst (CQA) , as well as ISTQB Agile Tester or Scrum Master.