Software Test Automation Lead

About the Role

Software Test Automation Lead (MES) About the Role Lead the testing and validation function for MES implementations, upgrades, and integration programs in a regulated manufacturing environment, driving both team performance and technical testing strategy.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the overall testing strategy across MES implementation, upgrade, and integration projects, ensuring end-to-end coverage from planning through execution.
• Serve as the release quality gate for MES changes, confirming that regulatory, functional, and performance criteria are satisfied before anything reaches production.
• Guide Computer System Validation (CSV) activities, ensuring all testing aligns with GxP, GAMP 5, and regulated software lifecycle expectations.
• Build and maintain the full suite of test documentation - plans, cases, and scripts - spanning functional, regression, integration, performance, automation, and UAT testing.
• Work with manufacturing process owners, business stakeholders, and validation teams to make sure test scenarios genuinely reflect how operations run on the floor.
• Own defect management end-to-end: triage, prioritisation, root cause analysis, and resolution tracking, using Azure DevOps, Jira, or equivalent platforms.
• Partner with development and DevOps teams to weave automated testing into CI/CD pipelines, raising release quality, repeatability, and delivery speed.
• Select, roll out, and refine test automation frameworks and standards fit for a regulated MES environment.
• Keep test environments properly configured and aligned with production-like conditions.
• Report testing metrics, quality status, and risk assessments in a form that gives stakeholders and senior leadership genuine visibility into project health.
• Build and lead a team of test and validation engineers, embedding a culture of quality ownership and continuous improvement.

Required Skills

• What We're Looking For A track record leading QA/testing functions on complex enterprise software programs within Agile/DevOps delivery models.
• Demonstrated ability to define and run a full-spectrum testing strategy - functional, regression, integration, performance, automation, and UAT - while leading a QA team.
• Practical experience embedding test automation frameworks into CI/CD pipelines.
• Direct experience with Azure DevOps, plus test tools such as Cucumber, Behave, Tosca, or Robot and test management frameworks such as Xray, Zephyr, qTest, or similar.
• Solid MES testing background - Emerson Syncade (DeltaV MES) preferred - covering electronic batch records, workflow configuration, and system integrations in a regulated setting.
• Working knowledge of GxP, CSV, and GAMP 5, along with experience testing MES integrations with systems like SAP and LIMS, gained in a pharma or life sciences environment.
• Strong stakeholder management, communication, and problem-solving skills.
• Comfortable with a hybrid schedule: three days on-site in Limerick, two days remote.