Quality Assurance Tester / Analyst

    The Allstate Corporation (NYSE: ALL) is the nation's largest publicly held personal lines insurer. Widely known through the "You're In Good Hands With Allstate?" slogan, Allstate helps individuals in approximately 17 million households protect what they have today and better prepare for tomorrow through approximately 14,100 exclusive agencies and financial professionals in the U.S. and Canada. Customers can access Allstate products and services such as auto insurance and homeowners insurance through Allstate agencies, or in select states at allstate.com and 1-800 Allstate?.

 

Job Description:

 

The position is located in Buffalo Grove, IL

 

The purpose of the department is to perform marketing technology application product testing.

 

The scope of this job as Quality Control Analyst is to lead efforts to develop test plans, prepares test data, and creates and executes functional & regression tests.

 

The individual will be responsible for:

 

1. Primary Responsibilities:  Analyzes business requirements to identify testable requirements.  Develops functional test plan based on business and functional requirements.  Conducts functional test plan inspections. Coordinates functional testing effort with project team.  Executes functional tests, analyzes and communicates results.  Identifies and documents functional testing defects. Develops and maintains test scripts.  Develops enhanced test models and techniques. Supports the creation and maintenance of test data and test environment.

2. Specific Responsibilities:  Mentors other QC analysts when working with the Project Manager to validate key business requirements. May also work closely with project business clients to conduct complex workflow analysis and recommend business process improvements.  Consults in the development of test strategy, thorough test plans, test specifications, test cases and/or test scripts for each software release based on defined testing standards.  Instructs others on test plan creation.  Mentors other QC analysts on strategic and tactical approaches related to complex functionality. 

3. Specific Responsibilities:  Provides direction in test plan inspections relating to strategic initiatives. Ensures adherence to project test activities to deliver quality throughout strategic initiatives.  Provides guidance and/or acts as project management, process management and governance liaison across testing areas to support strategic initiatives. Leads, guides and directs both project and enterprise-level testing staff in support of client initiatives across APT.  Responsible to consult on automation and/or non-automation techniques or methodologies to support complex or strategic direction. Acts as a subject matter expert (SME) accountable for the design of repeatable test models to facilitate analysis and defect identification. Ensures testing progress across project teams or client initiatives is reported effectively.

4. Specific Responsibilities:  Oversees the management of all defects opened to development teams. Acts as a lead and liaison with testing project team partners and developers in analyzing complex verification and validation of problems in applications. Acts as a subject matter expert (SME) and provides guidance in the development of repeatable test models, scripts, and packages.  Leads in the development and implementation of enhanced testing techniques, practices, and methodologies for an automated testing environment.  Consults on test techniques or methodologies to support complex or strategic direction. Responsible for the automation architecture and provides direction on automation techniques.  Responsible for the research and implementation of the advanced features of the automation test suite. Designs and leads others with process improvements within the test architecture. Provides strategic direction on testing tool selection, benchmarking and supports potential tool reviews.  Responsible for leveraging best practices across test areas, consults on design to ensure integrity of test environment and leverage best practices. Consults and provides direction on test environment issues related to interfacing, utilization of capital, potential software needs, storage capacity and critical computer related resources. Acts as a Platform subject matter expert (SME) to perform root cause analysis for complex testing and technical related issues affecting strategic related initiatives while networking with other environmental areas to resolve complex issues.

5. Other Responsibilities:  Mentors and coaches peers and colleagues. Builds and sustains relationships. Supports process improvements.  Supports corporate strategy. Provides informal training to all levels on the team.  Proactively identifies areas for improvement in team members and provides feedback on suggestions for improving processes.  Builds, cultivates, and maintains long term relationships.  Manages the expectations of customers.  Assists in maintaining contact with software vendors and other groups external to the Allstate organization. Identifies, designs and promotes complex cross-group performance initiatives either internal to APT or the supported business. Performs complex workflow analysis, develops, recommends and implements process improvements. Supports, identifies, and promotes opportunities to support the APT and corporate strategy. 6. OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES - Implement & maintain the CRM test automation strategy which includes the development of automation testing standards and procedures. Assure integration of automated testing processes with CRM test processes. Define automation test roles and responsibilities. All strategies, processes and procedures must be compliant with the CRM AMP and CMM. 

 

 

The skills required are:

 

1. Intermediate - Functional  Competency:  Business Requirements Definition - Proficiency level  3

2. Intermediate - Functional Competency:  Test Strategy and Planning - Proficiency level  3 

3. Intermediate - Functional Competency:  Testing Tools - Proficiency level  3

4. Intermediate - Functional Competency:  Test Execution  - Proficiency level  3

5. Intermediate - Functional Competency:  Problem Solving  - Proficiency level 3 

 

Experience Required:

Minimum five years as QC Analyst Testing batch, client-server and web applications. Thorough understanding of SDLC phases & deliverables. Department administration of test tools. Mentor and train others.  Project and department team interaction. Familiar with CMM. Familiar with Object Oriented programming concepts. Worked closely with analysts and developers to develop testing solutions. Very familiar with creating test plans and test cases. Managed and mentored less experienced test team members. Developed or improved testing processes. Demonstrated success in problem solving, business requirements definition, preparing test strategies and conditions, test execution, and testing tools. 

 

Computer Proficiency:

Certified Software Testing Engineer (CSTE) certification preferred. Familiar with testing Java, .Net, SQL, XML, Web Services, C# applications. Familiar with Oracle 9i RDMS, AIX (UNIX), Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP operating systems. Test Director 7.6. Microsoft Office Suite. Mercury's QTP 8.2 or previous versions. VBScript, C++, or VB Visual Source Safe. Promoting application code,  i.e, migrate application code to CRM's QCTest and production environments.

 

 

Allstate offers extensive benefits, including medical, vision, dental, profit sharing, pension, group life, paid time off, tuition reimbursement, short and long-term disability, flexible spending account, adoption reimbursement, and group legal care. If you are interested in this position, please click on the following link: