Director Test Engineering Lead Wholesale Credit Risk Technology

Overview Citi's Wholesale Credit Risk (WCR) Technology organization is seeking a Test Engineering Lead (Director, C15) to own and drive the quality engineering strategy for the Helios platform — Citi's strategic credit risk management ecosystem spanning Credit Review, Credit Approvals, Collateral, Covenants, Helios Lynx, and related applications. This is a hands-on, technically credible leadership role for an individual who can operate simultaneously as a people leader of a global testing organization and as a technical change agent who personally understands (and can demonstrate) modern test automation and emerging GenAI-driven testing approaches. The successful candidate will be the architect of Helios's transformation from a largely manual, high-touch regression model toward a highly automated, AI-augmented, continuously-testing operating model — directly improving speed-to-production, defect containment, and cost efficiency for one of Citi's most business-critical credit platforms. This role will partner closely with Development, SRE, Product, and Business Analysis leads across the Helios program. Business Context Helios underpins Citi's Wholesale Credit Risk workflows — credit approvals, risk rating, collateral management, limits, and covenants — for institutional clients globally. As GenAI accelerates the pace and complexity of software change across the platform, the QE organization must scale test coverage and confidence without a proportional increase in headcount . Current strategic priorities that this role will directly own or heavily influence include: Driving overall regression automation coverage toward and beyond a 90%+ automation target , up from a current baseline in the mid-to-high 80s. Reducing multi-day manual regression cycles (e.g., Helios Lynx, currently 5+ business days with 8–10 people) down to hours , through automation and parallelization on Citi's FAST test infrastructure. Standing up GenAI-enabled testing capabilities (e.g., agentic test authoring, AI-assisted defect triage, AI-generated test packs) as a core capability of the testing organization — not a side experiment. Reducing the manual test case backlog to fewer than 500 test cases. Improving defect containment — reducing UAT/production defect ratios, shortening average defect detection time, and systematically mapping production Problem tickets (PRBs) back into automated regression coverage to prevent recurrence. Leading the target-state operating model transition where automation engineering and E2E/governance functions are centralized under QE, while development teams take on greater ownership of SIT-level integration testing. Managing headcount, budget, and vendor/contractor transition (including offboarding of prior managed-service automation partners and scaling of a ring-fenced, global automation engineering team).

Global Team Leadership Lead, mentor, and grow a global, cross-regional team of software testing professionals (SDETs, automation engineers, manual/functional testers, and test leads) spanning NAM, EMEA, and APAC. Define career paths, performance goals, and skills-uplift programs to shift the organization's skill mix from manual testing toward automation engineering and AI-augmented testing. Own headcount planning, budget management, and the transition from third-party managed testing services to a ring-fenced, sustainable internal/blended automation engineering team. Act as the senior QE voice in governance forums, steering committees, and Senior Technology Management reviews. Test Automation Strategy & Execution Own the end-to-end test automation roadmap for Helios, spanning API (Cucumber/Gherkin BDD), UI (Playwright/TypeScript, Selenium), and integration/E2E test suites, executed on Citi's FAST test infrastructure. Drive automation coverage from current levels toward the 90%+ target, systematically eliminating "manual only" and "manual pending"