Description

Who are we?

Western National Insurance Group is a private mutual insurance company with over 120 years of experience serving customers' property-and-casualty insurance needs in the Midwestern, Northwestern, and Southwestern United States. Known as “The Relationship Company®,” we define success as a measure of the relationships we’ve built over time. In everything that we do, we know that delivering a friendly and helpful interaction makes for a better experience for everyone involved. That’s the power of “nice”. At Western National, nice is something we work to bring to every person and organization with whom we partner and serve.

Does this opportunity interest you?

Western National is seeking a Team Lead, Quality & Automation to join our team to lead quality engineering efforts across our billing and performance test engineering teams.

The individual in this role will have the opportunity to lead and coach a team of QA engineers / testers to ensure the delivery of high-quality products that align with the company’s strategic plan. The individual in this role will collaborate with technology and business stakeholders, identify impediments, manage risks, and drive continuous improvement through the demonstration of our core values: Accountability, Connectiveness, and Empowerment. This individual will bring structure, ownership, and maturity to performance test engineering practices. They will enhance testing efficiency and effectiveness and oversee the execution of test plans, cases, scripts, and documentation to ensure adherence to best practices.

What are the responsibilities and opportunities of this role?

Executes QA strategies and processes aligned to IT and product deliverables, ensuring quality outcomes across systems, teams, and supported applications.
Manages QA / AE resources, workload, and staffing needs within product team(s), balancing delivery commitments and team development.
Provides guidance on testing best practices, while driving continuous improvement in testing processes, standards, and tooling.
Leads, coaches, and develops team members across varying experience levels.
Ensures clear communication of testing progress, risks, and quality insights across projects involving multiple systems and stakeholders.
Implements and ensures testing metrics, reporting, and quality insights are available and communicated within the team and stakeholders to drive visibility and informed decision making.
Leads in the creation and continuous improvement of test strategies, processes, and standards, including automation and regression approaches.
Leads and matures performance test engineering practices within QA, establishing structure, standards, and accountability.
Defines and guides performance testing approaches, including workload modeling, SLA validation, and baseline, load, and stress testing
Partners with engineering and product teams to plan, execute, and improve performance testing efforts.
Improves performance test reporting, clarity, and business impact visibility.
Assists in formulating and implementing improvements in collaboration with other IT leaders within the context of product teams and partner teams to support delivery outcomes.
Identifies and drives opportunities to improve efficiency and quality of software delivery.
Supports and contributes to the evolution of company-level software development testing practices, standards, and policies.
Takes ownership of ambiguous or under-defined areas, establishing structure, direction, and accountability.
Leads problem-solving efforts, including root cause analysis and resolution of quality and performance-related issues.
Consistently acts according to our customer experience standards, including responding quickly, maintaining a positive attitude, building rapport, demonstrating empathy, managing the customer’s expectations, using the proper communication channel for the situation, and taking ownership to ensure the customer’s issue is resolved.
Collaborates with internal and external customers.
Performs special projects and other duties as assigned, including incident management responsibilities, which require being on call after hours approximately two weeks per year.

Requirements

What are the must-have qualifications for a candidate?

Prior leadership experience with demonstrated ability to coach and develop individuals, including supporting role progression and capability growth.
Experience leading QA or test engineering efforts within Agile environments, with a proven ability to drive continuous improvement, navigate ambiguity, and deliver quality outcomes.
Strong understanding of QA methodologies, test strategy, and quality best practices, including defining standards, processes, and tooling.
Experience establishing and communicating testing metrics, reporting, and quality insights to stakeholders.
Proven ability to communicate clearly and effectively with both technical and non-technical audiences, including influencing cross-functional stakeholders.
Demonstrated ability to prioritize and manage multiple objectives while balancing team workload and delivery commitments.
Demonstrated collaboration and influencing skills, with the ability to work effectively across teams.
Experience with test automation tools and frameworks, with the ability to guide strategy, standards, and improvements.
Experience with Agile methodology and tools (e.g., Jira, Confluence).
Experience with performance testing concepts (e.g., load, stress, scalability, SLA validation) and ability to guide or support performance testing efforts.
Proven ability to take ownership of ambiguous or under-defined areas and establish structure, processes, and direction.
Experience driving process or practice improvements in evolving environments.
Bachelor’s degree preferred; equivalent training, education, or experience in lieu of degree acceptable.

What will our ideal candidate have?

Experience in leadership roles.
Experience leading or supporting performance test engineering practices.
Experience developing teams through role transitions and capability growth.
Experience working in complex, multi-system environments.
Familiarity with tools, such as: JMeter or similar performance testing tools; Modern automation frameworks (e.g., Cypress or similar); and Observability tools (e.g., Datadog or similar).
Experience working in a matrixed leadership environment.
Property-and-casualty insurance industry experience / education.

Compensation overview

The targeted hiring range for this role is $130,000 – $155,000, annually. However, the base pay offered may vary depending on the job-related knowledge, skills, credentials, and experience of each candidate, as well as other factors such as the scope and location of the role. Candidates looking for compensation outside of the posted range are encouraged to apply and will be considered based on their individual qualifications and / or may be considered for other positions.

Culture and Total Rewards

Western National has long been known as “The Relationship Company®” and caring for our employees is part of that relationship commitment. We value connectiveness, empowerment, and accountability, and we believe that our employees are our biggest asset.

Currently ranked as the 41st largest private company by revenue in Minnesota (Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal), Western National has earned accolades year-over-year as an employer of choice and garnered multiple awards for wellness in the workplace. Western National has also been named a Top Workplace by the Star Tribune for consecutive years. In addition, the Group is consistently recognized as a Ward’s 50 property-and-casualty insurance company for its outstanding financial results.

Western National offers full-time employees a significant Total Rewards Package, including:

Medical insurance plan options and other standard employee benefits, including dental insurance, vision benefits, life insurance, disability insurance, and more!
Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
401(k) Plan (participants are eligible for 100% matching on the first 6% of their contributions)
Wellbeing Program, including onsite fitness studio
Paid Time Off – including holiday, vacation, and volunteer
100% company-paid tuition reimbursement for approved job-relevant coursework and access to The Institutes (Risk and insurance education)
Paid parental leave
Bonus opportunities

Western National believes in supporting balance between work and life by providing a flexible work environment, which includes a variety of hybrid and remote work arrangements designed to balance individual, job, department, and company needs.

Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.

Western National provides employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.

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