Test Planning Lead - Mainframe Product Migration

In this role you will own and drive end-to-end test planning for a mainframe product migration programme, ensuring a risk-based, audit-ready approach across all test phases. You will collaborate with delivery teams, vendors, operations and business stakeholders to align tests with milestones and release plans. You will shape test governance, data and environment readiness, and evidence for audit/compliance, while guiding go/no-go decisions. This position offers impact at scale within a global technology services leader, contributing to secure and reliable migration outcomes.

• comprehensive benefits package

• Define and maintain the overall test strategy and master test plan (phases, entry/exit criteria, environments, data, tooling, defect management, reporting)
• Build and manage an integrated test schedule aligned to programme milestones, cutover, and release plans
• Lead risk-based test planning (scope, prioritisation, coverage, non-functional testing) with traceability to requirements and migration risks
• Coordinate test phases: SIT, System/Integration, Regression, UAT support, Performance/Volume, Resilience/DR, Security, Dress rehearsals / cutover testing
• Define and govern test data approach (masked production-like data, synthetic data, data refresh cycles, reconciliation needs)
• Plan and coordinate environment readiness (mainframe regions/LPARs, middleware, interfaces, batch windows, stubs/simulators)
• Establish defect triage cadence, severity model, and quality gates; ensure timely resolution and retest
• Produce clear test reporting (progress, coverage, defects, risks/issues, go/no-go recommendations)
• Drive stakeholder alignment across dev, infrastructure, ops, business SMEs, and third parties; chair test planning and readiness forums
• Ensure evidence and controls are in place for audit/compliance (test artefacts, approvals, sign-offs)
• Support migration assurance: parallel runs (if used), reconciliation testing, batch/control totals, and post-migration verification

• Proven test planning leadership on mainframe migrations (e.g. z/OS, COBOL, CICS, DB2, IMS, MQ, Batch/JCL) and complex interface landscapes
• Strong understanding of batch cycles, end-of-day processing, data migration/reconciliation, and operational constraints
• Track record creating risk-based test approaches and running test governance at programme scale
• Comfortable working with multiple delivery teams and vendors; excellent stakeholder management

• Structured planner
• Delivery-focused
• Clear written communication
• Test management: JIRA and Zephyr
• Defect management and reporting: JIRA/ServiceNow/Confluence/Excel
• Familiarity with automation frameworks (preferred)