Quality Engineering Lead - Payments Program Delivery

Program/Project Management Lead

Project Role : Program/Project Management Lead
Project Role Description : Manage overall delivery of a program or project to achieve business outcomes. Define project scope and monitor execution of deliverables. Communicate across multiple stakeholders to manage expectations, issues and outcomes.
Must have skills : Clear2Pay
Good to have skills : Fiserv Enterprise Payments Platform, Test Automation Strategy, Payments Fundamentals
Minimum 15 year(s) of experience is required
Educational Qualification : 15 years full time education

Summary:
We are looking for a strong End-to-End Execution Lead to drive delivery for the Nordea SEK Batch Payments Program. This role will be responsible for leading execution across the full delivery lifecycle, ensuring seamless coordination between business, technology, QA, environment, and release stakeholders. The ideal candidate will bring deep experience in payments transformation, batch payments, ISO 20022 / SEPA / Nordic payments BankGirot- SekBatch, and large-scale banking platform delivery, with the ability to drive execution with control, clarity, and accountability. This is a leadership role requiring strong stakeholder management, delivery governance, issue resolution, and end-to-end ownership across multiple teams and dependencies.

Roles & Responsibilities:
End-to-End Delivery Ownership
- Own end-to-end execution of the SEK Batch Payments Program across analysis, design, build, testing, release, and implementation.
- Drive program delivery in line with committed milestones, scope, quality, and budget expectations.
- Ensure alignment across business, functional, technical, QA, and release teams to achieve successful delivery outcomes.
- Act as the central point of orchestration for all execution-related activities across the program.
Program Execution & Governance
- Develop and drive detailed execution plans, RAID logs, dependency trackers, and governance mechanisms.
- Monitor overall program health, identify execution risks early, and drive mitigation plans proactively.
- Ensure strong governance across sprint delivery, milestone tracking, defect resolution, environment readiness, and release planning.
- Lead regular status reviews with internal leadership, client stakeholders, and partner teams.
Stakeholder Management
- Work closely with Nordea stakeholders, delivery leadership, business teams, architecture teams, and third-party/vendor teams.
- Provide clear, concise, and data-driven communication on program status, risks, decisions, and next steps.
- Manage cross-functional and cross-location teams while ensuring effective collaboration and alignment.
- Support steering discussions and leadership reviews with clear articulation of progress, blockers, and actions.
Delivery Coordination
- Coordinate across Business Analysts, Developers, QA teams, architects, environment teams, and release managers.
- Ensure requirements are translated effectively into execution-ready deliverables.
- Drive integrated planning across upstream and downstream systems, interfaces, and operational dependencies.
- Ensure all workstreams are aligned for SIT, UAT, dress rehearsals, go-live, and post-production stabilization.
Risk, Issue & Dependency Management
- Identify critical dependencies across systems, vendors, and teams, and ensure timely resolution.
- Manage production risks, delivery bottlenecks, defect leakages, and readiness gaps with urgency and structure.
- Escalate issues in a timely and well-managed manner, while maintaining trust and confidence across stakeholders.
- Drive decision-making and follow-through on complex execution challenges.
Quality & Release Readiness
- Ensure delivery is supported by robust test planning, defect governance, traceability, and quality controls.
- Oversee readiness for release, including environment stability, test completion, business sign-off, and operational preparedness.
- Partner with QA leads to ensure the program achieves the desired quality outcomes with minimal leakage.
- Drive go-live readiness checkpoints and post-go-live tracking.
Continuous Improvement
- Drive structured improvements in execution methodology, governance, tracking, and reporting.
- Bring a strong delivery mindset with a focus on predictability, accountability, and operational excellence.
- Support the wider Nordea payments transformation agenda through disciplined program leadership.

Professional & Technical Skills:
- Strong experience in end-to-end program execution / delivery leadership within banking or payments transformation programs.
- Proven experience in batch payments, SEK / Nordic payments, or broader domestic and international payments processing.
- Strong understanding of payments lifecycle, clearing and settlement, and banking operations.
- Experience working in large, complex programs involving multiple workstreams, vendors, and stakeholder groups.
- Strong background in coordinating across Business, IT, QA, Release, and Operations teams.
- Experience in agile, hybrid, or structured delivery models with strong governance and milestone ownership.
- Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, including experience working with senior client stakeholders.
- Strong risk management, issue resolution, and dependency management capabilities.
- Experience in Nordic batch payments and related market/scheme understanding.
- Exposure to ISO 20022, SEPA, payment hubs, or core banking/payment platforms.
- Experience in large banking transformation programs involving legacy modernization, payments platform migration, or regulatory/scheme-driven change.
- Familiarity with tools such as JIRA, Confluence, Excel-based governance trackers, and reporting dashboards.
- Prior experience working in offshore-onshore delivery models.
- Experience with FIS / payment engines / enterprise payment platforms will be an added advantage.

Additional Information:
- The candidate should have minimum 12 years of experience in Clear2Pay.
- Strong ownership mindset with the ability to lead from the front.
- High level of accountability, structure, and execution discipline.
- Ability to manage pressure, ambiguity, and complex stakeholder dynamics.
- Strong collaboration skills with the confidence to drive alignment and challenge constructively where needed.
- Ability to balance strategic oversight with hands-on execution governance.
- Bachelor s degree in Engineering, Technology, Business, Finance, or related discipline.
- MBA or relevant banking/payments certifications will be an advantage.