Director, Software Engineering in Test (SET)

Pacific Life is investing in bright, agile, and diverse talent to contribute to our mission of innovating our business and technology to support a superior customer experience. We are actively seeking a talented Director of Software Engineering in Test (SET) to join our Pacific Life Technology team. This new role will report to the VP, Engineering Excellence.

The role is based in Newport Beach, CA (hybrid), and works with a diverse group of business and technology leaders ensuring delivery teams have the direction and tools needed for success.

As a Director of Software Engineering in Test within Pacific Life Technology, you will play a key role in Pacific Life's growth and long-term success, developing and executing upon the overall strategy and roadmap for the ecosystem of technology driving quality assurance engineering excellence across Pacific Life.

The Director of Software Engineering in Test does more than test software. Principally, they embrace the "automate everything" philosophy and function well in changing environments along with driving 'quality by design' as a central tenet of software development at Pacific Life. They take the lead in performance and security testing to build resilient systems and use automated and manual testing to efficiently test system functionality without compromising quality. This leader is a champion of engineering excellence at Pacific Life, owning and driving best-in-class quality engineering activities, processes, and people across the organization globally. In addition, they establish and advance software engineering in test (SET) practices, ensuring that testing is an integral part of the development lifecycle by embedding test automation and quality checks within the software engineering process. The Director also leverages AI to provide intelligent automation for QA and SET approaches to accelerate defect detection, optimize test coverage, and continuously improve testing efficiency and effectiveness, keeping Pacific Life at the forefront of technology-driven testing and quality assurance

How you will make an impact:

Standardization & Automation

• Engineer and maintain automation frameworks that support both manual and automated testing, integrating best practices from software engineering in test (SET).

• Lead the development of standardized testing frameworks and environments to enable functional, integration, system, and scale testing across PL Engineering
• Ensure performance and quality products are in line with best practices and standards on testing, engineering excellence and quality management, and evaluate emerging trends for potential implementation

QA Enablement & Engineering Culture

• Foster a federated engineering culture that empowers teams through centralized solutions for standardized SET and QA practices and tools.
• Drive mindshare and collaboration for efficiency via reusability and knowledge sharing.
• Champion communication to validate and clarify context and alignment across engineering teams. Champion quality, driving increased efficiency and effectiveness while partnering with enterprise programs to develop test strategies, benchmark and monitor team performance, and assist teams in solving problems
• Ensure software engineering standards and practices related to quality are ingrained in all design and development
• Prioritize and deliver iteratively in a continuously changing environment
• Work with Operations to set practices, policies, processes, frameworks to run tests in production environments after deployment

AI-Assisted QA and SET Engineering

• Advance the adoption of AI-powered testing practices, including agent-based automation for test generation, code reviews, incident triage, and self-healing test frameworks.
• Experiment with and deploy AI/ML-driven solutions to analyze legacy applications, optimize test coverage, and orchestrate SDLC workflows with minimal human intervention.
• Lead the transition from basic automation to intelligent, adaptive assurance, leveraging AI maturity models to guide strategic transformation.

Quality Metrics & Continuous Improvement

• Establish and report on common quality engineering OKRs, leveraging data-driven insights for continuous improvement.
• Define and track metrics for SET and QA health, adoption of new processes, and effectiveness of automation and AI tools.
• Promote a culture of continuous learning and process enhancement, including the evolution of GenAI tools and agents.

Strategic Leadership & Business Alignment

• Align QA/SET strategies with business objectives, focusing on outcomes that deliver consistent, predictable quality and enable rapid, reliable releases.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to shape engineering decisions based on testability, security, and compliance.
• Lead the adoption of innovative approaches to measuring test effectiveness, including AI-driven analytics and predictive modeling.
• Partner with other senior leaders to set and adopt quality standards to PL Engineering practices

The experience you will bring:

• 12+ years of experience leading best practices in Software Engineering in Test and Quality assurance process.
• SME in testing strategy and standards and applied automation to testing practices
• SME in implementing and driving adoption for BDD/TDD testing approaches.
• Applies expertise as an exploratory / hands-on tester using a variety of platforms and testing approaches in leadership setting; becoming the status quo for code review, quality assurance, and best practices

• Has hands-on prior experience with manual acceptance testing at the story level, exploratory and creative testing, and sprint cycles and applying learnings at-scale in leadership role at a large institution
• Builds strategy for hidden requirements, edge cases, and a "want to break" mentality
• Has expertise developing automated end-to-end testing and quality management, as well as knowledge of testing frameworks and tools such as Playwright, Selenium, Cypress, Jmeter etc.
• Strong experience in development with Java, Python and JavaScript.
• Experience building out a performance, load and stress testing practice
• Subject matter expert in Software Engineering in Test with hands on experience and understands of agile and DevOps practices and principles
• Experience managing a global team; ability to build, motivate and develop a deeply talented team of quality-minded engineers
• Ability to foster an environment of mutual respect with the shared mission to modernize technology for the modern workforce
• Strong communication skills: can communicate complex technical concepts and align organization on decisions that will set the tone for engineering practices, quality, and frameworks at Pacific Life
• Sound problem-solving skills: can quickly process complex information and present it clearly and simply

What will make you stand out:

• Experience working in the financial services industry (insurance industry a plus)
• Extensive knowledge and experience of Quality Assurance and Software Engineering in test principles, methodologies, testing tools and framework in Software/SaaS environments on cloud and on-premises
• Confidently understands and can lead teams on improving their engineering practices towards excellence
• Is passionate about technology and Gen AI and excited about the impact of emerging / disruptive technologies
• Believes in a culture of transparency and trust and is open to learning new ideas outside scope

You belong at Pacific Life

At Pacific Life we are committed to a culture of belonging, a space where all employees areempowered to be authentic. One way we cultivate an inclusive culture is through our employee connection groups. The purpose of these employee-led groups is to offer a place to build community, connection, camaraderie, and a sense of belonging.Each group can be active in education, advocacy, recruitment, and community building throughout our organization. Learn more about our employee connection groups at https://www.pacificlife.com/home/corporate-responsibility/diversity-equity-inclusion.html.