Discover

The Opportunity

Calgary, AB
Information Technology
Executive
Full-time

PQA has been going strong since 1997! We take pride in our commitment to the communities across Canada in which we are located because we know there is more to life than work. Our team members enjoy opportunities for continuous learning and they work with leading-edge companies, technologies, and tools. As one of Canada's largest and most established independent software testing companies, we insist on working with 'quality' people who share our passion for doing the job right!

We are growing in Calgary and are currently looking for a Director of Service Delivery to help us do that! The successful applicant will be responsible for retaining high-performing employees through the development of strong relationships, delivering exceptional results to our clients.

What you'll do

Responsibilities

Effective Management

  • Retain high-performing staff members
  • Give clear and actionable feedback that helps people get better and better at what they do
  • Address performance issues forthrightly and transition out staff members who are not performing at a high level
  • Establish clear outcome-based goals capturing what success looks like for individual staff members and ensure that plans are in place for meeting those goals
  • Monitor progress against goals on an ongoing basis, ensuring that course corrections are made as needed
  • Provide staff with guidance and mentoring
  • Ensure that goals truly drive the day-to-day work of all staff members
  • In assigning specific pieces of work, get aligned with staff members up-front about what you want achieved
  • Debrief work once it is done to draw lessons and hold staff members accountable for results
  • Proactively raise issues and questions
  • Be accessible; your direct reports must be able to get quick responses to requests
  • Provide upper management with feedback on employees worthy of extra recognition
  • Be an exemplar of our core values throughout your work
  • Make decisions with openness and fairness, seeking staff input whenever possible
  • Plan for optimum resource utilization and co-ordinate with HR for recruiting needs

Business Development

  • Build and maintain great relationships with clients to keep clients satisfied by exceeding their expectations
  • Assist sales team through preparation and delivery of presentations and statements of work by matching specific client business requirements with effective solutions
  • Educate prospective customers on solution implementation and usage, and answers their questions
  • Participate in consultations with prospective customers.
  • Create relationships with key decision makers and serve as external spokesperson
  • Develop and maintain a broad knowledge of the software quality and testing industry to stay aware of trends, issues and competition
  • Identify and peruse new opportunities in coordination with the sales organization
  • Work directly with customer contacts to resolve issues
  • Work cross-functionally within the organization and with external partners
  • Identify, quantify, and close future opportunities within existing accounts in coordination with the sales team
  • Participate in forecasting and manage budget
  • Help lead project and delivery managers responsible for getting services delivered to clients
  • Build client trust through effective communication, professionalism and expert knowledge

What you'll need

Qualifications

  • 15+ years QA experience
  • 5+ years' experience at the director level
  • Passionate commitment to quality and success
  • Clear effective communicator
  • Ability to connect with others in on a professional and personal basis
  • Strong organizational skills and ability to work independently
  • Ability to manage multiple competing priorities, and work effectively under the pressure of time constraints in a fast-paced, collaborative environment
  • Understanding of and experience with client software/implementation testing
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills

We're looking for

Core Skills

Agile Methodologies Quality Assurance Risk Analysis Scripting Team Leadership Test Planning Tracking

A little bit about us

PLATO

Who We Are
PLATO is a software testing and technology services company trusted by clients around the world.

In addition to providing our clients the highest quality software testing services, PLATO is creating careers in technology for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people from coast to coast to coast through our innovative train-and-employ model. Since 1997, we have been helping organizations all over the world reach their quality objectives by delivering scalable, proven, quality-centric managed services. Companies such as Apple, Suncor, TD Bank, Medavie, BCLC, LinkedIn, Boeing, and many others have gained considerable advantage from our Quality Assurance (QA), Testing, and eLearning expertise and experience.

We deliver specialized QA services to our clients with the goal of helping them increase profitability, boost customer satisfaction, manage development cycles and implement quality-centric solutions. We develop innovative approaches and solutions, designed to generate increased efficiencies, competitive advantage, and market share for our clients.

Are you interested?

Work With Us

At PQA Testing, we encourage our employees' personal career growth. We have plans in place to make sure that each employee is connected with a mentor to help guide them through their professional development, offer bi-monthly lunch & learns and give our employees chances to attend industry conferences.

Our employee's health and wellness are #1 here at PQA Testing. We offer health incentives for our full-time employees to help them reach their goals of a healthy lifestyle. PQA Testing is always organizing events that involve exercise and our annual Family Day BBQ is one event that definitely brings all of us closer.

Always remember one thing while you're working at PQA Testing...have fun!