Head Of Quality Assurance; Financial

Head of Quality Assurance (Financial Software)

Menlyn Maine, Pretoria. Reporting To:
Chief Operations Officer BaaS (Banking as a Service)

We're on a mission to improve the global financial ecosystem by enabling banks and corporates to offer innovative financial solutions that benefit society. Integrity, tenacity, learning, enabling and agility are our core values, and we've served our customers and partners for more than 23 years.

The Head of Quality Assurance (QA) is a pivotal senior leadership position responsible for defining and executing a holistic quality strategy that assures the integrity, performance, and security of all Direct Transact products and services.

This role requires a seasoned leader who will transition the organization from reactive testing to proactive quality engineering and assurance. You will embed a culture of quality ownership across the entire Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), ensuring our high-volume, mission-critical financial systems maintain flawless reliability and strict adherence to global payment standards (Visa / Mastercard) and financial regulatory compliance.

I. Strategy, Leadership, and Center of Excellence

• Quality Vision & Strategy :
  Define, communicate, and implement a long-term QA strategy and roadmap that aligns with Direct Transacts business objectives, driving a transition to continuous, automated quality engineering.
• Team Leadership & Development :
  Lead, mentor, and scale the QA / Quality Engineering team, fostering a culture of innovation, continuous learning, and technical excellence.
• Centre of Excellence (CoE) :
  Establish and maintain a QA Centre of Excellence, defining and promoting best practices, modern methodologies ( Shift-Left, BDD, TDD ), and centralized knowledge sharing across all development streams.
• Process Improvement :
  Continuously evaluate, standardize, and optimize QA processes and methodologies to maximize efficiency and reduce time-to-market without compromising quality.

II. Technical & Operational Excellence

• Automation Architecture :
  Own the strategy, design, and implementation of a robust, scalable, and sustainable test automation framework covering unit, integration, functional, and end-to-end tests across APIs, Front-end (Portal, Internet Banking), and core back-end systems.
• CI / CD Integration :
  Ensure QA processes are fully integrated into the CI / CD pipeline, enabling rapid, reliable, and frequent deployments to various environments (Dev, Test, UAT / Pre-prod, and Production).
• Performance & Resilience :
  Oversee and implement strategies for critical non-functional testing, including high-volume performance, load, stress, and scalability testing essential for mission-critical payment systems.
• Innovation :
  Drive innovation in QA, specifically leveraging AI / ML tools for predictive defect detection, smart test case generation, and anomaly detection to enhance testing efficiency and accuracy.
• Technical Oversight :
  Ensure the team maintains strong technical proficiency in tools, languages (e.g., SQL, C#, OOP), and methodologies required to test complex, distributed, service-oriented (microservices) and cloud-based architectures.

III. Financial Domain, Risk, and Compliance

• Reconciliation Assurance :
  Develop specialized testing environments and processes to rigorously validate the accuracy and integrity of settlement figures and complex reconciliation logic across all payment rails.
• Scheme and Regulatory Compliance :
  Ensure all platform features adhere to the strict specifications and certification requirements of Visa, Mastercard , and relevant financial regulations ( PCI DSS, SOX ), mitigating regulatory risk through comprehensive testing.
• Fraud and Negative Testing :
  Collaborate with Product and Fraud Management teams to develop effective negative and edge-case testing scenarios that proactively identify and mitigate fraud vectors within transaction processing and card solutions.
• Collaboration and Stakeholder Management :
  Work closely with the IT Executive, Development Manager, Business Analysts, and external Clients to ensure quality standards are met and customer expectations are consistently exceeded.

The Head of QA is directly accountable for the overall quality and reliability of Direct Transacts software solutions. Performance will be measured by the following critical KPIs :

• Defect Leakage Rate (Production):
  Percentage of defects found in production (vs. QA), specifically tracking high-impact financial transaction issues.
• Regulatory Compliance Score:
  Measures adherence to financial regulations and scheme specifications (Visa / Mastercard) during QA processes and external audits.
• Test Coverage for Core Financial Modules:
  Ensures critical areas like payments, reconciliation, reporting, and lending logic are thoroughly tested and automated.
• Automation Coverage and ROI:
  Percentage of test cases automated, and the return on investment from automation…