QA Project Manager at EA
The Challenge Ahead:
QA Project Managers play a critical role in defining and implementing critical knowledge transfer and the overall communication process with internal and external game teams. They provide feedback on scope, project requirement definitions, and deliverables. Essentially, QA Project Managers need to know everything that has happened, might happen, and will happen in their project.
What a QA Project Manager does at EA:
The Project Manager is responsible for creating and maintaining the tracking mechanisms for all aspects of project and product progress. Reporting to the Project Manager will be one or more Project Leads with responsibility for many manual testers and advancing our automated testing.
Most of your time will be dedicated to auditing weekly progress towards project goals and communicating the results to partners and shareholders. This also includes identifying risks and communicating mitigation steps to partners, individually and with your manager. You will ensure that task related processes are efficient and effective.
Additionally, you will dedicate a significant portion of your time managing people. You must embrace the challenge of mentoring and supporting a team of direct reports, and contributing to the development of their careers. Establishing effective working relationships within the QA department, the QA project team and the outside business partners are critical to success in this role.
To aid in this responsibility, you will become versed in EA’s practice of project management and its centralized practices.
The next great EA QA Project Manager also needs:
- Significant product delivery / experience working on multiple simultaneous games or software projects as a manager
- PMP training or certification will help
- ISTQB Foundation level wouldn’t hurt
- Real-world experience leading of direct reports – preferably groups of 25+ of different experience levels
- A proven track record of driving change – be ready to provide examples of your success
- Experience in Agile and waterfall development environments
- Jira, DevTrack and/or Bugzilla defect tracking and database experience
- The ability to work with remote/off-shore teams spread across multiple time zones
