Mainframe Test Director / VP / AVP - Remote (US or Canada)
Key Responsibilities: Test Strategy & Governance Define and own the overall migration testing strategy, framework, roadmap, and governance model. Establish testing standards, quality gates, entry/exit criteria, and release readiness processes. Develop a risk-based testing methodology aligned to migration waves and deployment milestones. Establish traceability between migration changes, risks, business requirements, and test coverage. Provide executive reporting on testing progress, quality metrics, risks, and release readiness. Risk-Based Testing & Change Impact Assessment Lead application, infrastructure, and operational impact assessments to understand migration-related changes. Develop a risk-ranking framework to classify components based on: Code modifications JCL conversion impacts Platform configuration changes Data migration impacts CICS transaction changes Interface dependencies Security changes Operational and scheduler impacts Business criticality Define testing depth and coverage based on migration risk and business impact. Optimize testing effort by focusing on high-risk and high-business-value components. Maintain a Migration Testing Risk Register and Quality Heat Map. Identify migration-specific risks and ensure mitigation plans are incorporated into testing activities. Test Tooling, Automation & AI Strategy Define the overall testing tool architecture and strategy for the migration program. Evaluate, select, and implement testing tools supporting: Test management Defect management Test automation Data reconciliation Batch validation Regression testing Performance testing Reporting and dashboards Establish automated validation approaches for batch jobs, file comparisons, data reconciliation, and migration verification. Design reusable automation frameworks and testing accelerators. Identify opportunities to leverage AI-enabled testing capabilities for: Test case generation Impact analysis Regression optimization Defect clustering and analysis Test productivity improvement Establish testing KPIs and quality metrics to measure effectiveness and automation adoption. Test Planning & Design Develop comprehensive testing plans covering: System Testing System Integration Testing (SIT) End-to-End Business Process Testing Regression Testing Data Validation & Reconciliation Testing Performance & Volume Testing User Acceptance Testing (UAT) Operational Readiness Testing Cutover & Rollback Validation Testing Define test environments, test data strategy, and environment governance. Ensure test coverage aligns with migration risk profiles and business priorities.