Qa Program Manager

Colorado Department of Education - What We Do
The Colorado Department of Education (CDE) provides leadership, resources, support, and accountability to the state's 178 school districts, 1,888 schools, over 53,000 teachers, and over 3,200 administrators to help them build capacity to meet the needs of the state's approximately 905,000 public school students. In addition, CDE provides structural and administrative support to the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind and the Charter School Institute.
As the administrative arm of the State Board of Education, CDE is responsible for implementing state and federal education laws, disbursing state and federal funds, holding schools and districts accountable for performance, licensing all educators, and providing public transparency of performance and financial data.
CDE is a values-based agency that serves students, parents, and the general public by protecting public trust through ensuring adherence to laws, strong stewardship of public funds, and accountability for student performance.
Why Work For CDE
The work we do is rewarding and impacts the students, families, educators, and communities across Colorado. Our leadership also promotes a culture that puts families and self-care as a priority. Along with meaningful work and an environment that puts employees first, the state also offers rich benefits that intend to make us an Employer of Choice!
The following is a summary of the benefits we offer:

• Flexible work schedules and flexible workplace options that may include flexible working hours, working from home, working in the office, and/or a hybrid working environment.
• Premier medical, dental, vision, and dependent life insurance options. All with a generous employer contribution keeping employee costs as low as possible.
• Employer paid short-term disability and life insurance
• Up to 160 hours of Paid Family Medical Leave (PFML)
• 11 paid holidays per year
• Competitive vacation and sick leave accruals
• Retirement through the Public Employees Retirement Association (PERA) www.copera.org
• Employer paid RTD Eco Pass (certain restrictions may apply)
• Paid professional development opportunities

This is an exciting and challenging role for the right person. If you like to create and build while also contributing to the daily work this might be the position for you.
The Colorado Department of Education (CDE) has a culture of people that are hardworking, good at what they do, thoughtful of each other; they work with integrity and honesty. It's the kind of environment of which many people dream, and most people thrive. We are a small to medium state agency with around 600 employees.
CDE Information Management Systems (IMS) provides all the technical services for CDE. We are a small organization with around 45 employees. IMS includes several business units which are listed below with some of the key tools used.
Management of the technical infrastructure (on premises, Oracle based)
Supports CDE's wide variety of applications and systems (home grown and vendor supplied)
Provides business analysis and project management skills. (wide variety of projects large and small)
Applications Development (Java, PL/SQL)
Data Warehouse Development (Informatica)
Reporting Services Development (Tableau, Cognos)
A data services unit for the Schools/Districts to guide and assist with data submissions.
A data Privacy unit (student data requires critical protection)
A unit to manage internal and external data and access requests.
A Help desk,
You may notice a testing team is missing. Currently the developers do unit and system/application testing, as well as other types of testing as needed. The project management team assists with user acceptance testing and other testing when possible.
It is not enough. We need someone to join us with a QA background, someone who understands how to establish QA processes and determine what kind of testing we can do for each situation, based on limitations of resources and time. We have no automated testing tools and need your help to select tools.
Did I mention we are hardworking? This person needs to balance establishing testing standards but to do the testing as well. Our managers are working managers. This role may grow and eventually have direct reports but for now, we need someone that can and wants to do both roles. We need someone that enjoys the blend of the roles.
This role will report to the PMO. We want this person to have a team that understands and can help support their work. A group of people with which you can safely share ideas and get feedback.
Read on about this role if you might be this individual.
Position Description
CDE Technical Environment
The Quality Assurance Program Manager is responsible for delivering comprehensive testing services which ensure high-quality deliverables to projects critical to CDE and the Districts it supports. The QA Program Manager will plan, lead, perform and report on testing. They are also responsible for documenting the testing strategy and testing standards. The Program Manager will also provide recommendations for maturing the function as an integral part of the Division.
This is a new, much needed role at the CDE. This will be a major shift in operations. Currently, testing is and has been done by developers, business analysts, project managers, and users performing acceptance testing. Because one Quality Assurance person is not enough, this practice will continue. The individual that accepts this role will be a part of the Project Management Office and will lead the effort to establish QA best practices based on CDE needs and resources.
Major Duties and Responsibilities:
This is a unique opportunity for the right individual. The ideal candidate is someone with extensive QA experience (at least 6 years), who can establish quality protocols and processes but who can also roll-up their sleeves and do the testing as an individual contributor. This individual will create, manage, and improve the Quality Program. This position does not have assigned direct reports.
The Ideal Candidate will possess the following skills and attributes:
Management/Leadership:
This individual will be responsible for testing, creating long and short-term strategies and must possesses the ability to lead without direct authority over project teams. This individual will have the ability to read the team, get their buy-in and implement change. There will be an initial effort to set up our quality program, but this role will complete each change and move to planning and initiating the next change, it will be an ongoing effort to manage the quality program. The ideal candidate:
Is a change agent, understands the difficulties of change, has the patience to implement what can be tolerated and when to implement the next change.
Is a good collaborator and knows how to communicate to get buy-in for process change.
Is not dependent on automated testing tools and can create manual processes.
Can help to select, implement, and integrate automated tools.
Has the ability to prioritize what testing can be completed while minimizing the risk across projects.
Can work with any level equally well. Does not talk down to nor over other people's heads.
Must be able to navigate deadlines, negotiate when necessary.
Provide regular testing status updates to stakeholders.
Ability to set reasonable expectations.
Diplomacy and professionalism are crucial for success in this role.
Possesses experience as a business analyst.
Possesses experience as a project manager.
Quality Assurance Short and Long-Term Strategy
Gain an understanding of our project lifecycle today by stepping in and testing using our current processes in our current environment. In parallel, as your CDE knowledge grows, build a strategic plan to improve quality outcomes. This will be a living document and will include short-term gains and long-term goals as well as gauging how much change to inject at any point in time.
Explore automation tools for testing and make recommendations for purchasing and implementing tools.
Stay apprised of testing innovations and industry standards.
Incorporate best quality practices into CDE processes.
Review, enhance and maintain testing strategy documentation.
Develop and implement quality standards.
Technical Skills
Quality Assurance Testing
Using documentation, testing, and project team members, understand what an application is built to accomplish for the customer and the appropriate output.
Experienced with many testing types with the ability to determine the types of testing that will be performed for each application, based on the best outcomes with our resources. As noted, there are many types of testing including but not limited to:
o Unit
o Component
o Performance
o System
o Sanity
o Smoke
o Integration
o End-to-end
o Functional
o Regression
o User Acceptance
Create detailed test plans, tests cases and document the results of testing.
In collaboration with the project team and other stakeholders, develop and execute test plans that meet the requirements of the project.
Test functionality against requirements (Review codes, specifications, processes, etc.)
Perform manual testing and build reusable test automation for future use.
Competent writing SQL queries to evaluate results
Ensure that workflows, processes, and products comply with laws and regulations.
Investigate and troubleshoot product or production issues.
Develop corrective actions, solutions, and improvements.
Create and manage issue tickets and assign them to the appropriate person.
Assist and guide the end user to participate in user acceptance tests.
Develop and implement continuous improvement initiatives.
Other duties as assigned.
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS, SUBSTITUTIONS, CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT & APPEAL RIGHTS:

• Five (5) years of professional experience* in Information Technology, Information Systems, Computer Science, Software Engineering, or an occupational field related to the work assigned to the position.

___________________________________________________________________________
OR
Option 2: Education and Experience* (MQs)

• Graduation from an accredited college or university with a Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Information Systems, Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a field of study related to the work assignment.

AND

• One (1) yearof professional experience in Information Technology, Information Systems, Computer Science, Software Engineering, or an occupational field related to the work assigned to the position.

___________________________________________________________________________
OR
Option 3: Other Educational Degrees in Lieu of a Bachelor's Degree (Substitutions)
Degrees and Professional Experience requirements as as described under "Option 1" and "Option 2":

1. Graduation from an accredited college or university with a Associate's degreeAND Three (3) yearsof professional experience.
2. Graduation from an accredited college or university with a Master's degreeAND One (1) yearof professional experience.

___________________________________________________________________________
QUALIFICATIONS NEEDED TO SUCCEED IN THIS POSITION:

• Two (2) years of managing or leading a technical team.
• One (1) year project management experience.
• One (1) year business analysis experience.
• Six (6) years of quality assurance testing experience.
• Experience in quality assurance testing, test case development, creating testing plans, documenting testing strategies, coding, and using QA software tools and processes.
• Experience in technical writing. Strong attention to detail (proofing work, spelling, grammar, formatting, etc.).
• Strong written and verbal communication.
• Detailed analytical thinking and problem-solving abilities.
• Strong technical aptitude.
• Proficient at writing SQL queries.
• Strong interpersonal skills and ability to form strong relationships with stakeholders.
• Self-motivated, requires little supervision.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently, as well as on a team.
• Desire to grow and develop individual skills, the role, and the quality assurance program.
• Ability to lead quality assurance efforts.
• Ability to work remotely.
• Demonstrated abilities in:

1. Effectively balancing quality of work and speed.
2. Collaborating with internal and external customers.
3. Initiating and exhibiting a proactive approach to work.
4. Identifying potential problems and recommending solutions prior to impact.
5. Basic knowledge in generating process documentation.
6. Travel opportunities are rare and optional.

PREFERRED KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES:

• Eight plus (8+) years of experience in different types of testing and quality assurance processes and procedures
• Two plus (2+) years of experience in leading teams and project management
• One plus (1+) year of experience in business analysis and process engineering
• Proficiency working in Microsoft Office and Visio
• Experience working within the education environment, either at a district or school.
• Quality assurance certification(s) (ASQ) / knowledge of quality assurance methodologies
• Experience with TOAD.