Test Governance Lead - Instant Payments
Role Overview
We are seeking a seasoned Test Governance Lead to oversee and direct testing for the Instant Payments. This role operates at the scheme-operator level, ensuring that every release of the Instant Payments platform meets the quality, stability, and readiness standards required for nationwide deployment.
The Test Governance Lead will coordinate across delivery partners, AEP, participating financial institutions, and internal Unitey teams to ensure that platform-wide testing is executed with discipline, transparency, and strong governance. This is a strategic oversight role, responsible for safeguarding the integrity of the Instant Payments ecosystem.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead UAT governance for the Instant Payments Scheme, ensuring platform-level readiness across core services, overlay services, cross-border integrations, stabilization drops, and change requests.
- Review, challenge, and approve test strategies, test plans, scenarios, test data design, and execution approaches submitted by delivery partners.
- Ensure alignment with national payment system standards, regulatory expectations, and AEP's overarching testing strategy.
- Oversee multi-cycle UAT execution at the scheme level, including testing with simulators/stubs and coordinated testing with participating financial institutions.
- Validate performance testing readiness, ensuring the platform meets required scalability, resilience, and peak-load thresholds expected of a national real-time payment system.
- Coordinate across the ecosystemAEP, participating institutions, internal Unitey teams, and delivery partnersto ensure environment readiness, data availability, and dependency management.
- Govern test automation strategy, ensuring regression packs are robust, reusable, and aligned with the Instant Payments platform roadmap.
- Drive structured reporting, including dashboards, defect governance, and steering-level updates for scheme leadership.
- Identify risks early, propose mitigation plans, and escalate appropriately.
- Ensure knowledge retention through validation of documentation, KT packs, and reusable assets delivered by testing partners.
- Represent Unitey in all scheme-level UAT governance forums, providing clear, data-driven insights to leadership.
Required Experience & Skills
- 812 years of experience in software testing, with at least 5 years in test leadership or test governance roles.
- Strong background in payments, ideally instant payments, ISO20022, real-time payment infrastructures, or national payment systems.
- Experience managing multi-stakeholder or multi-vendor testing programs at a platform or scheme level.
- Solid understanding of functional testing, performance testing, and test automation.
- Familiarity with test management tools, defect tracking systems, and structured reporting.
- Strong analytical and documentation skills; ability to review and challenge test artefacts with confidence and authority.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, especially in high-pressure delivery environments.
- Ability to operate with urgency, structure, and executive presence.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with real-time payments, ISO20022 message flows (pacs.008/002/003/004/028, camt.053, acmt.023/024), or other high-availability financial systems.
- Experience overseeing large-scale UAT programs in regulated environments.
- ISTQB or equivalent certification.
