Automation - Sr. Manager

Location: Pune

Experience: 12 to 16 Years

Role Summary

The Automation Manager at Vodafone/VOIS is accountable for driving end-to-end test automation strategy and delivery across Vodafone markets (UK, EVO, VBIT, Vodacom, etc.). The role focuses on building scalable automation capabilities, enabling faster and safer releases, and delivering measurable business value through quality, speed, and cost optimization, aligned with Vodafones Customer, Growth, and Simplicity priorities.

Key Responsibilities

Automation Strategy Enterprise Governance

• Defining and own aligned automation strategy across UI, API, mobile, and integration testing.
• Establish and govern automation standards, framework guidelines, and best practices.
• Drive End-to-End Automation concepts including reusability, asset-driven automation, and cross-domain coverage.
• Embed shift-left and shift-right testing in Agile and SAFe delivery models.
• Define governance for automation coverage, stability, execution cadence, and maintenance.
• Track and report automation metrics aligned to VOIS dashboards (coverage %, regression cycle time, defect leakage, FTE savings).

Technical Leadership Architecture

• Own and evolve enterprise-grade automation frameworks (Playwright/Selenium-based).
• Drive API-first testing for microservices and backend-heavy Vodafone platforms.
• Ensure robust test data management, service virtualization, and environment readiness.
• Integrate automation into CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps standard within VOIS).
• Champion AI-enabled automation initiatives (self-healing, test optimization, defect analytics).
• Provide technical reviews and architectural guidance across programs.

Delivery, People Capability Management

• Lead and mentor automation leads and engineers across multiple Vodafone programs.
• Align automation delivery with PI planning, sprint goals, and release calendars.
• Drive capability uplift via training, labs, and communities of practice.
• Own resource planning, skill taxonomy alignment, and onboarding of automation talent.
• Support performance management (KRAs, goals, feedback) for automation teams.

Stakeholder Program Engagement

• Act as the automation SPOC for program managers, business stakeholders.
• Present automation roadmaps, maturity assessments, and value realization to leadership.
• Influence adoption of automation across legacy-to-cloud transformations.
• Proactively identify delivery risks, dependencies, and improvement opportunities.

Technical Skills

Automation Testing Tools

• UI Automation: Playwright (preferred), Selenium, Tosca
• API Automation: REST Assured, Postman
• Mobile Automation: Appium
• BDD: Cucumber

Programming Engineering

• Strong hands-on experience in Java / JavaScript / TypeScript / Python
• Sound understanding of OOP, design principles, and automation design patterns

CI/CD DevOps

• CI/CD: Azure DevOps, Jenkins
• Source control: Git
• Build tools: Maven, npm
• Container infra exposure: Docker, Kubernetes

Quality Engineering Practices

• Risk-based testing and coverage optimization
• Service virtualization, mocks, and stubs
• Reporting and observability for automation execution
• Exposure to telemetry, logs, and monitoring-based validation

Cloud Platforms (Highly Preferred)

• Exposure to Azure / AWS / GCP
• Experience testing microservices, APIs, and cloud-native solutions

Soft Skills

• Strong technical leadership and influencing skills
• Effective communication across business, dev, and ops teams
• Proactive, data-driven decision-making
• Ownership, accountability, and customer-centric mindset
• Comfort working in global, multi-vendor environments