MANOHAR VENKATARAMAN

Phone: *** W **th Street, New York City ad40tx@r.postjobfree.com

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY:

A strategic and proactive Quality Assurance Professional with experience from Business Analysis to Project Management throughout the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Products ranged from financial trading to e-consulting using legacy systems and cutting edge technology.

CERTIFICATIONS AND SOFTWARE:

Certified Software Quality Analyst (CSQA) Quality Assurance Institute

Knowledge used to review company’s SDLC and implement best practices with the business and development teams from requirements gathering through to application creation and implementation

Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) Scrum Alliance

Ensures the individual understands the terminology, practices and principles of Scrum

Salesforce Administrator Salesforce

Ensures candidate has an understanding of a variety of Salesforce skills including managing users, data and security, along with customizing reports, dashboards and workflows

Sales Cloud Consultant Salesforce

Verifies expertise in several client facing disciplines including designing Sales and Marketing solutions to meet business requirements and managing data and design analytics to track key sales cloud metrics

Salesforce Trailhead Expeditioner Salesforce

Second highest rank on Salesforce’s Trailhead training program

IBM Agile Advocate IBM

The Agile Advocate has the capability to discuss Agile values and principles and has begun applying the Agile practices to their daily activities

IBM Automation Essentials IBM

This badge earner understands multiple essential elements of Intelligent Automation and the Future of Work to evolve their automation journey

IBM Certified Cloud Advocate IBM

The IBM Cloud advocate can explain the essential characteristics, history and trends of cloud computing. They can describe the business case for and identify the services, deployment models, components and architectures underpinning cloud computing.

Software familiarity and usage

Jira, AQC, Rally, Confluence, Sharepoint, Box, Microstrategy, Business Objects, Informatica, SAP Hana

EXPERIENCE:

IBM, New York NY

QA Architect: 2017 - Present

Strategic Function:

Worked with clients and internal teams to create best practices for implementing Salesforce

Reviewed and advised on how to implement Salesforce within a variety of SDLC and then provided the required expertise to provide the test strategies and plans to do so

Tactical Function:

Supervised and executed QA functions for clients including creating test strategies, plans and scripts, executing the scripts, recording defects and meeting with Business analysts, development and users.

Multi tasked with multiple clients simultaneously providing QA functions for projects in different states

Achievements:

Helped create strategic QA content, best practices and procedures for the QA function

Provided content and examples to show the value and need of having QA involved even for a highly configurable vendor product such as Salesforce

Supervising Offshore resources, helped successfully create and execute test scripts with tight deadlines

Major Client Engagements:

Brighthouse Financial, American Express, American Red Cross, Abbott Laboratories, Waste Management, Delaware Life, Smarsh

LLOYDS, New York NY

Senior QA Consultant: 2015 – 2017

Strategic Function:

US Test Lead for Global Ring Fencing UK Regulatory project which involved changing structure of the US bank. The multi-year project involved hundreds of people globally affecting all aspects of the bank.

Handled several projects as the sole lead tester. These included the large scale SoftCo implementation and annual SWIFT upgrade for 2016. Both of these projects were delivered on time as scheduled.

Updated the existing ALM QC system to implement best practices and standardized usage across all projects to use metrics to properly align resources.

Tactical Function:

Performed all QA functions for several projects including creating test strategies, plans and scripts, executing the scripts, recording defects and meeting with Business analysts, development and users.

Ensured bank was not in violation of any sanctions or customer policy by executing AML KYC Comfort testing daily with a 24 hour SLA to avoid a breach that would be escalated to the Head of Compliance.

Achievements:

ALM process improvements allowed Management to identify structural issues including measuring Enhancements requested late in the SDLC. Delivery times were improved and metrics standardized.

Projects completed as scheduled avoided cost overruns for SoftCo and regulatory issues for SWIFT.

MOODYS, New York NY

QA Manager Consultant: 2015

Strategic Function:

Managed the QA team of onshore and offshore personnel to ensure the implementations were on track

Performed Project Manager functions for 3 vendor teams of Salesforce, Peoplesoft (General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Account Management) and Peoplesoft (Contracts, Business Intelligence and Accounts Receivable). This involved consolidating the testing function (test runs, results) along with the issues and providing management updates

Tactical Function:

Chaired daily triage meetings during QA and UAT. Maintained Jira/Sharepoint to ensure projects were on target including creating filters and dashboards and implemented best practices

Liaised with various software development teams to make sure issues were fixed and tested. Teams included Business Analysts, the data conversion team and ETL as well as external vendors like FPX

Organized teams maintaining different environments/testing cycles. In addition to multiple code streams/vendors there were also multiple data sets/dependencies from Peoplesoft for Salesforce

Achievements:

Implemented best practices for managing issues for both QA and UAT to improve project deliverables

Created filters and dashboards to find existing hidden issues, increase accountability and get projects back on track from inefficiencies and delays by replacing Sharepoint issue tracker with Jira.

GOLDMAN SACHS, New York NY

Senior QA Consultant: 2014 – 2015

Strategic Function:

Implemented best QA practices for the Marquee ecosystem and related applications.

Analyzed systems, identified an application and implemented full QA lifecycle including regression test plan. Created functional test plans, automating regression plan for several iterations before scaling.

Tactical Function:

Performed ad hoc testing as needed for individual applications while creating regression test suites

Gained consensus on strategic QA recommendations and then implement them across applications daily

Achievements:

Created QA Wiki to consolidate dispersed information and provide a single page for future QA staff

Developed a Poc Jira framework for collating client feedback and to demonstrate Jira’s full functionality

NEW YORK LIFE, New York NY

Jira Configuration Consultant: 2012 – 2014

Strategic Function:

Defined best practices for Jira configuration and implemented those in conjunction with Jira Agile.

Reviewed upcoming Jira releases and plugins and implement those that solve internal client needs.

Worked with internal clients to demo Jira and customize for their needs then performed the migrations.

Tactical Function:

Updated the system based upon client customization requests for new and existing projects.

Maintained infrastructure including Development/QA/Production environments.

Achievements:

Worked with a variety of teams to provide and implement a roadmap to Production Deployment.

Simplified Best Practices framework for minimal maintenance and Project Metrics comparison.

Oversaw large increase in users/usage, from 1,500 issues updated in 2013 (10 months) to 6,000+ issues in 2014 (8 months).

MILLENNIUM CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, New York NY

QA Manager: 2011 – 2012

Strategic Function:

Managed expectations of internal clients Equity Development and Trade Production to deliver high priority items

Reorganized department to provide primary/backup coverage and training for applications and Asia support. This extended QA coverage to 16 hours/day improving delivery times and reducing downtime

Tactical Function:

Created a functional testing process and regression test plan for Equity PnL applications.

Had data comparison tool coded to perform daily data comparison between QA and Production that revealed data issues that were then preemptively found and fixed.

Achievements:

Replaced inadequate issue tracking system with Jira, implementing best practices.

oMetrics now became easily available across projects in real time for management which allowed reallocation of resources and reducing delivery timelines.

oTracked trading destination internal application server changes via Jira, improving the ability to track high priority issues, obtaining resolutions quickly and significantly reducing delivery times.

Created QA Sharepoint site to consolidate information that was spread in multiple places or previously nonexistent. Efficiency was increased 25% by reducing training time for new/existing team members.

Hired an automation expert to create a QTP framework following best practices that was scalable and easy to maintain via a customized portal as scripts were being outsourced with no oversight.

o TOMS Regression test plan execution was reduced from 6 weeks to less than a week.

TETHYS TECHNOLOGIES, New York NY

QA Manager: 2010 – 2011

Strategic Function:

Defined, documented and executed short, medium and long term strategic objectives. Overhauled inadequate regression test plans, integrating new functionality testing and transitioned to automation.

Reviewed QA personnel and took appropriate action, replacing and hiring personnel as required

Tactical Function:

Managed team and performed functional testing on applications focusing on Transaction Cost Analysis and Market Data applications (Reuters, Townsend and Activ) along with Algorithms and Strategies.

Continued to constantly evaluate the SDLC and suggest and implement enhancements on a daily basis.

Achievements:

Overhauled the existing Jira workflow for issue tracking and enhanced 30% more accurate delivery estimates, enabling gauging the performance of different technology departments.

Used previous experience to transition team from waterfall to agile methodology and successfully lobbied for other employees to receive external training to facilitate process.

Led project to implement a knowledge base by centralizing information on a wiki. This reduced the learning curve for new employees, increased productivity for existing personnel.

SECOND MARKET, New York NY

QA Manager: 2009 – 2010

Strategic Function:

Balanced Technology strategic objectives based on roles as both Agile and QA Manager.

Reviewed the processes in place for the existing outsourced method of QA, determined local staffing needs, hired and organized new employees into functional teams based on need

Overhauled issue tracking using Jira to align objectives in a Scrum based environment. Built consensus from San Diego to Kiev to provide accurate management and forecasting ability

Tactical Function:

Member of management team that reviewed iteration and release statuses and made adjustments.

Trained Technology teams both in New York and onsite in Kiev for the new code tracking processes.

Achievements:

Instituted code tracking process that resulted in 0 post production hotfixes in subsequent releases. Previous production releases had at least 1 hotfix, including the previous release which had 4.

Reduced Post Production defects by 30% with planning and resultant management requested release dates more accurate. Management provided with visibility allowing bottlenecks to be detected.

Created pilot program to record interviews with end user traders for training. The program was a resounding success and the program expanded to work with all trading desks.

MOORE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, New York NY

QA Manager: 2007 – 2008

Strategic Function:

Founded QA Department, including hiring a mixture of employees, consultants and interns. Created best practices and processes across the IT area, including but not limited to test strategies, functional test plans, requirements documentation, development standards and change management.

Tactical Function:

Tested all sized projects covering front/middle/back office including trade entry, pricing, positions updating and daily valuation. Testing included front end and data reconciliation.

Achievements:

Named Technology Coordinator for the Net Asset Value Profit and Loss (NAV PnL) project to ensure that disparate technologies were integrated, matched up with requirements, tested and released.

Started cross departmental initiatives to change IT focus from reactive to proactive, including:

oInaugurating development standards meetings at Management level

oOverhauling the entire Change Management process to streamline and automate it

BANK OF AMERICA, New York, NY

QA Lead Consultant: 2006 – 2007

Strategic Function:

Instituted testing process for major parts of the new Reference Data Project (RDP) which included Ratings, Trade Processing Services (TPS) and Global Common Securities Interface (CSI).

Implemented best practices for documenting code changes to provide metrics to Senior Management

Tactical Function:

Created and executed test plans for various applications for both GUI and Data Reconciliation

Achievements:

Successfully completed highly aggressive product delivery deadlines within 3 months of work start date

Expanded responsibilities from tactical functional testing to the strategic quality process. Projects included:

oTaking full control over an internally developed automated testing tool

oExpanding the usage of Quality Center to include Business Rules/Requirements/Test Plan modules

Provided additional resources to manage after proven success including internal and offshore.

INVESTMENT TECHNOLOGY GROUP, INC. New York, NY

UAT Acceptance Coordinator: 2002 – 2006

Strategic Function:

Created UAT Methodology, Workflow and Document examples (as highlighted on Global Intranet).

Member of Software Division’s Methodology Committee to review and introduce new standards.

Established UAT parameters for direct access trading products and Pre and Post Trade Analytics.

Tactical Function:

Established a liaison between LA Software and NYC Trading Desk for launch of Triton Equities Trading

QA performed on Pre Trade Analysis Plug-in for Excel, allowing static and dynamic Portfolio analysis to monitor risk and cost, while providing system testing with Triton and ITG Logic connections.

Achievements:

Streamlined the use of ‘Wikis’ to help multi-location team achieve maximum efficiency to continually successfully complete aggressive 2 week release cycles for new advanced research products.

PREVIOUS ROLES:

JPMorganChase - Senior QA Consultant New York, NY

Plural (formerly Blackberry Technologies) - Senior Associate: New York, NY

ING Barings - Senior QA Consultant: New York, NY

EBS Dealing Resources - Senior QA Consultant: Parsippany NJ

Merrin Financial – QA Manager New York, NY

EDUCATION:

Binghamton University, NY - B.S. Economics, B.A. Mathematics

Oxford / London Universities, England

Received major U.S. college credit for Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry

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