Senior Principal - SN QA Lead

Job description

Business Introduction GSK remains committed to achieving bold commercial ambitions for the future. By 2031, we aim to deliver £40 billion in annual sales, leveraging our existing strong performance momentum to significantly increase our positive impact on the health of billions of patients globally. Our Ahead Together strategy is centred on early intervention to prevent and alter the course of disease, thereby protecting people and supporting healthcare systems. Our diverse portfolio consists of vaccines, specialty medicines, and general medicines. Through continuous innovation and a dedicated focus on scientific and technical excellence, we strive to develop and launch new, groundbreaking treatments that address critical health challenges. Job Purpose The QA Lead is responsible for defining, governing, and embedding quality assurance practices across the ServiceNow Platform & Enterprise Tools Domain, ensuring that platforms, products, and integrations are delivered with high levels of reliability, security, usability, and compliance. The role establishes a consistent quality strategy aligned to agile and product-based delivery, enabling teams to release changes confidently while protecting service stability and business outcomes. Operating as a domain-level quality authority, the QA Lead partners with Product Owners, Solution Architects, engineering teams, and Service Operations to ensure quality is designed-in throughout the delivery lifecycle. The role balances automation, risk-based testing, and governance controls to support rapid delivery while maintaining robust quality standards across ServiceNow and adjacent enterprise tooling. Key Responsibilities Quality Strategy & Governance •        Define and own the quality assurance strategy for the ServiceNow Platform & Enterprise Tools Domain, aligning with product delivery, architecture standards, security requirements, and enterprise governance. •        Oversees the end-to-end testing environment, automated testing frameworks, platform release testing, and validation of platform upgrades across ServiceNow and enterprise tools. •        Establish domain-wide QA standards, test approaches, and quality gates covering functional, non-functional, regression, integration, and user acceptance testing. •        Define risk-based testing approaches to prioritise effort across critical services, high-transaction workflows, regulated processes, and AI-enabled automation. Delivery Assurance •        Provide QA leadership across multiple delivery teams, ensuring quality activities are embedded throughout the product lifecycle (refinement, build, test, release, and post-go-live). •        Partner with Product Owners and Delivery Managers to define acceptance criteria, test coverage expectations, and release readiness decisions. •        Ensure dependencies, integrations, and cross-platform impacts are adequately tested across ServiceNow modules and enterprise tooling integrations. Test Automation & Tooling •        Drive the adoption and continuous improvement of test automation strategies, including automated regression, API testing, workflow validation, and data integrity checks. •        Govern the use of QA tooling and frameworks (e.g. ServiceNow ATF, API testing tools, CI/CD quality checks), ensuring consistency and reusability. •        Balance automated and manual testing approaches based on risk, complexity, and business criticality. •        Accountable for the end-to-end testing environment, automated testing frameworks, platform release testing, and validation of platform upgrades across ServiceNow and enterprise tools. Non-Functional & Compliance Assurance •        Ensure non-functional requirements (performance, resilience, security, accessibility, operability) are clearly defined, tested, and signed off prior to release. •        Partner with Security, Risk, and Compliance teams to embed appropriate controls, evidence, and audit readiness into QA processes. •        Support validation of AI-enabled or automated workflows, ensuring transparency, fallback behaviour, and safe operation. Operational Readiness & Defect Management •        Oversee defect management processes, ensuring issues are triaged, prioritised, and resolved effectively with clear root-cause insight. •        Support go-live and hypercare activities, ensuring quality risks are understood and mitigated. •        Contribute to continuous improvement by analysing defect trends, test effectiveness, and release outcomes. Professional Qualifications •        Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Business, Information Technology, Project/Programme Management, or equivalent experience. •        Professional certifications desirable (e.g., ITSM, etc). Area of Specialisation •        Quality assurance and test strategy for enterprise platforms, ServiceNow testing and validation, test automation and quality engineering, non-functional testing and risk-based assurance, agile and product-based delivery environments Why is this level of Education Required? •       A solid educational or professional foundation is required for judgement on quality risk, release readiness, and governance trade-offs. Experience Required •        Overall 15 years and typically, 5-7 years in QA, testing, or quality engineering roles within complex enterprise environments. •        Proven experience defining and leading QA strategies across multiple teams or platforms. •        Strong experience testing workflow-based platforms (e.g. ServiceNow) and complex system integrations. •        Demonstrated experience implementing and governing test automation frameworks. •        Experience working within agile or DevOps delivery models. •        Experience operating in regulated or compliance-driven environments is highly desirable. Desirable Requirement: •        Platform release and environment management leadership – Strong experience owning end-to-end release processes for a mature ServiceNow platform, including planning, coordination, and risk management across environments. •        Strategic QA and automated testing governance – Ability to define testing strategy, standards, and automation frameworks (functional, regression, integration) and ensure they are consistently applied across products and modules. •        Vendor and MSP QA delivery management – Skilled at directing outsourced QA teams, translating quality requirements into clear work packages, and ensuring MSP output meets agreed coverage, quality, and timeliness targets. •        Quality metrics, defect management, and continuous improvement – Strong capability in defining and using quality KPIs (defect rates, test coverage, escape rates), leading defect triage, and driving improvements in QA practices and release robustness. •        Collaboration with product, engineering, and release stakeholders – Able to work closely with product managers, engineers, and release managers to align test scope with risk, manage entry/exit criteria, and communicate release readiness clearly. Skills/Background •        Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a structured approach to quality risk. •        Excellent communication skills, able to articulate quality impacts to technical and non-technical stakeholders. •        Ability to influence delivery teams without direct authority. •        Strong understanding of service management, operational risk, and change control. •        Comfortable working across global and cross-functional teams. #AGTech Skills Agile Methodology, AI Product Management, API Testing, Automated Release Management, Automation Frameworks, CI/CD, Knowledge Management, Leadership, Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), Penetration Testing, Performance Testing, Regression Testing, Scripting, ServiceNow IT Business Management, ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM), Test Automation Framework, Test Case Design, Test Management Tools, Tool Selection Why GSK? Uniting scien