At the Richmond Fed, we're driven by our mission to strengthen the economy and our communities. We take great pride in what we do, and it impacts people every day.
When you join our team, you'll become part of a culture that welcomes differences, cares about our communities, and empowers each other to lead from where we are to make things better.
Bring your passion and we'll provide challenging and purposeful careers in a variety of fields, opportunities to grow and a wide range of benefits and perks that support your health and wealth. It's all part of what makes #MyRichmondFed a great place to work!
About the Opportunity
Our System and Agency Services (SAS) department supports the Wholesale Product Office (WPO), Subcommittee on Credit Risk Management, and select government agencies by providing business application support, business analysis, customer support, customer testing support, project management, and subject matter expertise, to ensure business functionality and operational resilience.
SAS' WPO Testing Unit has an immediate opening for a Senior Technical Advisor - WPO Test Engineer.
As the Senior Technical Advisor, you will be a be an integral member of the WPO Testing Unit. You will provide technical expertise and thought leadership in the planning and execution of customer testing for large and critical payment systems, and use your advanced knowledge of modern testing methodologies, ability to influence testing initiatives, and forward-thinking mentality to contribute to an evolving customer testing strategy. You will:
Create, execute, and maintain testing strategy and detailed test plans/schedule for Depository Institution Testing.
Develop testing campaigns for customer testing and lead the customer testing efforts including internal coordination, scheduling, and reporting.
Develop and maintain a system for identifying and tracking system defects and coordinating with staff to ensure the successful resolution and retesting of defects.
Work closely with business partners and stakeholders to ensure that testing plans account for required scenarios to validate Fedwire Application Interface Manual (FAIM)/technology standards and best practice compliance.
The primary working hours for this position will be Monday to Friday. To provide optimal customer support, we ask that you are available for incident management and off-hours/weekend/holiday support as needed to support customer testing, and resolve, analyze and escalate production problems, operational issues, and weekend activities.
It will be necessary to work on-site or remote/alternate working arrangements depending on the banks and business lines pandemic posture and business requirements. The Federal Reserve Bank has implemented social distancing, mask wearing, temperature checks, and other related protocols to keep you safe considering the current pandemic situation.
What You Will Do:
Customer Testing:
Provide technical leadership in the planning and execution of testing efforts to validate and certify customer applications and quality control methodologies with industry standards. Develop customer testing strategies and plans and implement robust testing practices for customers to certify that their application and configuration can interface with the real-time Fedwire applications and are able to process transactions.
Collaborate and implement robust manual and automated testing practices to drive efficiency, reduce user errors and repeatability.
Develop and implement a testing strategy for the Depository Institution test environment, including problem management, leveraging the environment to develop operational scripts and prove automation, and deriving business insights on customer behavior to inform product and service decisions.
Develop an understanding of the customer's configuration and testing requirements to provide consultation to WPO and the DIs.
Strategic Thought Leadership:
Collaborate in a team environment and contribute to technology vision to drive and support the evolving operational testing model aligned with Fedwire goals.
Ensure customer needs are met while also ensuring risks are mitigated, promote a positive work environment, and guide teams through transitions and change.
Participate in strategic workforce planning strategies as a normal course of business including resource planning, staff skills assessment and development, and the hiring and onboarding new staff.
Incorporate current continuous improvement practices and applicable industry standard frameworks like Agile, SRE, DevOps to maintain and pursue high levels of efficiency and organizational change and motivate the team to adopt them.
Assist with setting a vision for the future, including developing plans to meet or achieve business needs pertaining to testing consistent with System IT Principles.
Maintain a high level of knowledge of technical, operational, and policy issues relating to the industry and provide a high level of application and/or operational expertise.
Provide recommendations, interpretations, and consultative services to key stakeholders on operations and testing practices.
Qualifications:
Bachelor's degree in a related field or an equivalent combination of education and/or five years of experience in the support of testing environments for critical applications.
Minimum 5 years of broad technical experience in one or more phases of information technology and management information systems. Experience to include leading highly complex IT efforts and / or operations.
Experience in managing and developing testing practices using industry standards and methodologies.
Knowledge of critical production environments and large dollar payment and securities clearance systems. Knowledge of Fedwire® business is desirable.
Knowledge of distributed computer processes, and distributed components such as servers, database, monitoring tools, UNIX, SQL, MQ and WebSphere
Knowledgeable of logging and monitoring tools such as Splunk, DynaTrace, BMC Patrol.
Knowledgeable and experienced in application testing automation technologies and tools
Certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt or similar process improvement methodologies preferred
Knowledge and experienced in Agile methodologies, Site Reliability Engineering approaches to IT operations
Knowledge of Cloud computing, DevOps and other emergent technologies and frameworks
Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Must be able to communicate and share testing activity and business status with system leadership and appropriate stakeholders.
Strong strategic, problem-solving, critical thinking and decision-making skills.
Ability to think clearly and remain calm when confronted with issues.
Advanced proficiency using standard business applications and software.
Experience balancing the needs of multiple stakeholders and management and maintaining working relationships across the organization.
Experience and skills in defining, capturing, analyzing, and managing metrics.
Broad ability to interpret and apply knowledge of distributed infrastructure, applications, testing procedures and technical reports
Expertise in problem solving, creativity and innovation to determine problem areas and provide fresh approaches to solving highly complex problems
Strong ability to analyze, assess test results and report accurately, applied practical knowledge of test planning, knowledge of document revision and version control practices.
Discover the Reason Why So Many People Love It Here!
When you join the Richmond Fed, not only will you find a challenging and purposeful career, you'll also have access to a wide range of benefits and perks that support your health and wealth, including:
Great medical benefits
Pension and 401(k) with employer match
Paid time off
Tuition reimbursement
Employee resource networks
Paid volunteer leave
Flexible work options
Onsite amenities that make working here fun!
Other Requirements and Considerations:
Candidates should review the Bank's Employee Code of Conduct to ensure compliance with conflict of interest rules and personal investment restrictions. The Code is available on the About Us, Careers webpage.
Sponsorship is not available for this role. The selected candidate will be subject to a government security investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information. Eligibility for this specific position requires U.S. Citizenship or three or more years of Permanent Resident status.
The Richmond, VA hiring range for the Senior Technical Advisor $106,200 - $132,800 annually.
Salary offered will be based on the job responsibilities and the individual's knowledge, skills, and experience as defined in the job qualifications/experience.
Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Interested candidates are strongly encouraged to apply by May 26, 2021.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond provides equal opportunity to all individuals without regard to race, sex, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information.
