Manager QA_BA.Corporate Affairs-Head

MashreqBank

JOB DESCRIPTION

The Senior QA / Business Analyst is the person in the squad who makes sure that what gets built is what the business actually asked for — and that it works properly before it reaches production. This role sits at the intersection of business analysis and quality assurance, combining the ability to understand and document business needs with the technical skills to test whether solutions meet those needs.

This is not a pure testing role. The Senior QA/BA is expected to engage directly with business stakeholders to draw out requirements, challenge assumptions, and turn conversations into clear, testable specifications. They then follow that work through into testing — designing test strategies, building automation where it makes sense, validating data accuracy, and making the final quality call before anything goes live.

Operating within a regulated banking environment, this person carries real accountability. Reports that feed regulatory submissions, financial dashboards that inform leadership decisions, and data pipelines that underpin the Bank’s operations all pass through their hands. They are the last line of defence before a defect becomes a business problem.

Operating Budget

NA

Number of Staff

 1

Capital Exp. Budget

NA

NA

Requirements Analysis and Specification

The Senior QA/BA works directly with business stakeholders, Finance teams, and the Product Owner to understand what is needed and why. They do not wait for requirements to be handed to them — they ask the right questions, identify gaps in what has been communicated, and document clear, testable specifications that the squad can build against. Where requirements are vague or conflicting, they resolve ambiguity by going back to the source, not by making assumptions.

They translate business intent into acceptance criteria that are precise enough for developers to code against and testers to validate. For reporting and data-related work, this means specifying expected calculations, data sources, filters, reconciliation rules, and edge cases upfront — before a single line of code is written.

Test Strategy and Quality Ownership

The Senior QA/BA defines the overall test approach for their squad’s work. This covers functional testing, integration testing, regression cycles, and user acceptance testing. They decide what gets tested manually, what gets automated, and where to focus effort based on business risk — not just technical complexity. They own the quality narrative for every release: what was tested, what was found, what the residual risk looks like, and whether the delivery is ready for production.

They build and maintain automation frameworks where the return on investment justifies it — covering UI, API, and data validation layers. They do not automate for the sake of automation; they automate where it reduces risk and speeds up feedback. All testing work is integrated into the squad’s CI/CD pipeline so that quality checks happen continuously, not as an afterthought.

Data and Reporting Validation

A significant part of this role involves validating the accuracy of data pipelines, ETL processes, and the financial and management reports that sit on top of them. The Senior QA/BA checks that numbers reconcile end-to-end — from source systems through transformation layers into final reports and dashboards. For BI outputs such as Power BI reports, this includes verifying calculations, filter behaviour, drill-down logic, and row-level security.

They use SQL and data analysis tools as everyday working instruments, not just occasionally. When a number does not look right, they can trace it back through the data lineage to find where it went wrong.

Defect Management and Root Cause Analysis

When defects are found, the Senior QA/BA does more than log them. They triage by business impact, identify the root cause, and work with the development team to fix the issue and prevent it from happening again. They maintain quality gates and checklists that catch recurring problem patterns before they reach testing. Over time, they reduce the defect rate by addressing systemic causes rather than treating each bug as an isolated event.

Compliance, Traceability, and Release Readiness

Every piece of testing work must be traceable back to a business requirement. The Senior QA/BA maintains this traceability end-to-end, ensuring that audit and compliance teams can see exactly what was tested, how, and with what result. They produce the quality evidence required for regulatory change, internal controls, and release governance.

They own the quality input to go/no-go release decisions — providing clear test reports, risk assessments, and production validation plans. When they say a release is ready, the squad and stakeholders can trust that judgement.

Continuous Improvement

The Senior QA/BA tracks quality metrics such as defect leakage rates, automation coverage, and mean time to resolve issues. They use these numbers to identify weaknesses in the squad’s processes and drive practical improvements — whether that means better test data management, tighter quality gates, or smarter use of automation tools. They also explore how AI-assisted testing and analytics can make quality assurance more efficient and effective.

This role operates in a fast-moving, heavily regulated banking environment where data privacy, access controls, auditability, and formal change management are non-negotiable. The Senior QA/BA works across both legacy core banking platforms and modern cloud-based systems — covering data warehouses, APIs, microservices, and BI reporting layers.

They follow the Bank’s Agile and DevSecOps practices, adhere to enterprise data governance and information security policies, and ensure all testing complies with regulatory requirements and secure test data standards. Day to day, they work closely with Finance, Regulatory Reporting, Technology, Data, Transformation, PMO teams, and external vendors to coordinate testing activities and ensure high-quality delivery.

The Senior QA/BA deals with problems that cut across business logic, data, systems, and environments. They diagnose defects that may originate in the UI, an API, a data pipeline, or a downstream report — and they isolate whether the cause is code, configuration, data quality, or an environment issue. When data does not reconcile or a BI report shows unexpected results, they trace the issue through SQL queries, logs, and lineage tools until they find the source.

They balance thoroughness against delivery timelines, using risk-based thinking to decide where to test deeply and where good-enough coverage will do. They anticipate environment constraints and test data challenges, putting workarounds in place before these become blockers. They also use AI tools where appropriate to accelerate testing, detect anomalies, and improve code quality.

The Senior QA/BA decides the test approach, tooling choices, and automation priorities for the squad’s deliverables. They accept or reject completed stories based on evidence against quality criteria, and they escalate material risks that could affect a release. They prioritise defects by weighing business impact, compliance risk, and user experience, a