AVP, Quality Engineering Lead(L10)

Job Description:

Role Title: AVP,  Quality Engineering Lead(L10)

Company Overview:

Synchrony (NYSE: SYF) is a premier consumer financial services company delivering one of the industry’s most complete digitally enabled product suites. Our experience, expertise and scale encompass a broad spectrum of industries including digital, health and wellness, retail, telecommunications, home, auto, outdoors, pet and more.

• We have recently been ranked #2 among India’s Best Companies to Work for by Great Place to Work. We were among the Top 50 India’s Best Workplaces in Building a Culture of Innovation by All by GPTW and Top 25 among Best Workplaces in BFSI by GPTW. We have also been recognized by AmbitionBox Employee Choice Awards among the Top 20 Mid-Sized Companies, ranked #3 among Top Rated Companies for Women, and Top-Rated Financial Services Companies.

• We provide best-in-class employee benefits and programs that cater to work-life integration and overall well-being.

• We provide career advancement and upskilling opportunities, for all to take up leadership roles

Organizational Overview: Synchrony's Engineering Team is a dynamic and innovative team dedicated to driving technological excellence. As a member of this Team, you'll play a pivotal role in designing and developing cutting-edge tech stack and solutions that redefine industry standards. The Credit Card that we use every day to purchase our essentials and later settle the bills - A simple process that we all are used to on a day to day basis. Now, consider the vast complexity hidden behind this seemingly simple process, operating tirelessly for millions of cardholders. The sheer volume of data processed is mind-boggling. Fortunately, advanced technology stands ready to automate and manage this constant torrent of information, ensuring smooth transactions around the clock, 365 days a year. Our collaborative environment encourages creative problem-solving and fosters career growth. Join us to work on diverse projects, from fintech to data analytics, and contribute to shaping the future of technology. If you're passionate about engineering and innovation, Synchrony's Engineering Team is the place to be.

Role Summary/Purpose:

The QE Lead will lead quality engineering for API/service-layer products deployed on AWS cloud-native infrastructure, with strong hands-on ownership of test automation using Java + Cucumber (BDD), reporting via Allure, and test/defect management in ALM/Octane. This role requires deep expertise in testing AWS services including Lambda, S3, EKS, Step Functions, and AuroraDB. The QE Lead partners closely with engineering, product, DevOps, and QE CoE to embed quality into CI/CD and deliver reliable, secure, and scalable APIs and cloud-native workloads. While this role is automation-first, the QE Lead should be comfortable performing manual testing as needed for exploratory testing, complex scenarios, or when automation is not yet available.

Key Responsibilities

API & AWS Test Automation 

• Own and drive end-to-end QE strategy for API releases and AWS-deployed services: functional, integration, regression, and contract testing 

• Lead and contribute hands-on to Java-based API automation using Cucumber/Gherkin (feature design, step definitions, hooks, tags, data-driven execution) and perform manual testing when required (exploratory, validation of new/complex features, triage/verification of defects, and ad-hoc release readiness checks) 

• Build/maintain API automation frameworks (RestAssured/HTTP client, JSON schema validation, serialization/deserialization, auth handling) with extensions for AWS service validation 

• Design and automate test scenarios for AWS Lambda functions, including event-driven triggers (S3, SQS, Step Functions), cold start behavior, and error handling 

• Automate validation of AWS Step Functions workflows — testing individual states, retries, error paths, and full state machine execution 

• Build automated tests for S3 file operations (upload, transformation, output validation) and AuroraDB read/write verification 

Reporting, Test Management & Quality Gates 

• Implement Allure reporting (test categorization, trends, flaky test analysis, actionable dashboards) across API and AWS service test suites 

• Manage test planning, execution, requirements traceability, and defects using ALM/Octane (test sets, runs, metrics) 

• Integrate automated suites into CI/CD pipelines (Cloudbees), establish quality gates for smoke/regression across environment promotions (Dev → QA → UAT → Prod) 

Strategy, Process & Leadership 

• Drive shift-left practices: define testable acceptance criteria, add automation during sprint 

• Mentor QE engineers; perform code reviews; establish automation standards and best practices for both API and AWS service testing 

• Communicate release readiness, quality metrics, and risks clearly to stakeholders 

• Define and track quality metrics: defect escape rate, automation coverage, test cycle time, flaky test rate 

• Own defect triage, root cause analysis (RCA), and drive systemic fixes to prevent recurrence 

Qualifications/Requirements:

• 5+ years in QA/Testing with 2+ years leading QA or owning quality for a team/product. 

• Strong test automation experience in Java with Cucumber (BDD) and API testing. 

• Solid hands-on API automation experience (e.g., RestAssured, request/response validation, headers/auth, retries, idempotency checks). 

• Strong experience with Allure (reports, categories, attachments, trends). 

• Strong experience with ALM/Octane for test case management and defect lifecycle. 

• Good understanding of test design techniques, STLC, Agile/Scrum. Experience with Git, Maven/Gradle, and CI/CD integration. 

• Hands-on experience testing AWS services: Lambda, S3, Step Functions, EKS, AuroraDB, SQS/SNS 

• Understanding of IAM roles, policies, and security testing in AWS environments 

• Experience testing containerized workloads on Docker and Kubernetes (EKS)

Preferred Qualifications 

• Contract testing experience and/or schema validation (JSON schema) 

• Exposure to messaging/async systems (Kafka/RabbitMQ, SQS/SNS) testing 

• Database validation (SQL), test data management, and service virtualization (WireMock) 

• Security testing basics for APIs (OAuth2/JWT, OWASP API Top 10 awareness) 

• Performance testing exposure (JMeter, Gatling) for APIs and batch workloads 

• Experience with AWS CloudWatch, Splunk, or similar observability tools as part of test validation 

• Familiarity with chaos engineering practices for Kubernetes/EKS workloads AWS certifications (Solutions Architect, Developer, or DevOps Engineer) 

• Exposure to financial services / banking domain 

Desired Characteristics:

• Strong ownership, execution focus, and ability to unblock cross-team dependencies. 

• Clear communication of quality status, risks, and go/no-go readiness. 

• Coaching/mentoring mindset; sets standards and raises the bar for automation 

• Analytical mindset with a focus on risk-based testing across cloud-native distributed systems 

• Ability to design test strategies that balance cloud infrastructure cost with coverage needs 

Eligibility Criteria:

Minimum 5+ years of experience with Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science/Engineering or equivalent experience or in lieu of a degree 7+ years of relevant experience.

Work Timings : 2 PM -11 PM IST

This role qualifies for Enhanced Flexibility offered in Synchrony India and will require the incumbent to be available between 06:00 AM Eastern Time – 11:30 AM Eastern Time (timings are anchored to US Eastern hours and will adjust twice a year locally). This window is for meetings with India and US teams. The remaining hours will be flexible for the employee to choose. Exceptions may apply periodically due to business needs)

For Internal Applicants:

• Understand the criteria or mandatory skills required for the role, before applying

• Inform your manager and HRM before applying for any role on Workday

• Ensure that your professional profile is updated (fields such as education, prior experience, other skills) and it is mandatory to upload your updated resume (Word or PDF format)

• Must not be on any corrective action plan (First Formal/Final Formal, LPP)

• L8 Employees who have completed 18 months in the organization and 12 months in their current role and level are only eligible.

Grade/Level: 10

Job Family Group:

Information Technology