Senior Manager, Test Engineering- Networking background is a must

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, which manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Senior Manager, Test Engineering – Networking Background Required based in India.

This is a senior engineering leadership opportunity for an experienced quality professional to lead end-to-end testing and quality strategy for a complex network security operating system. You will oversee quality assurance across major releases, patches, and hotfixes, ensuring that critical firewall products meet high standards for reliability, performance, security, and customer trust. Working across engineering, product management, release engineering, DevOps, and support, you will embed quality throughout the software development lifecycle. You will drive automation strategy, strengthen CI/CD integration, and improve test infrastructure across hardware, virtual, and cloud environments. The role combines deep networking expertise with strategic planning, technical decision-making, and people leadership. You will also mentor QA managers and senior engineers while building a high-performing team focused on continuous improvement and predictable, high-quality releases.

Accountabilities

• Quality Strategy and Release Management

  • Define and continuously improve the quality assurance strategy for network security software across major releases, patches, and hotfixes.

  • Establish quality gates, entry and exit criteria, and measurable release readiness standards.

  • Drive risk-based testing and shift-left practices to identify defects and security risks early in the development lifecycle.

  • Lead quality reviews and make release go/no-go recommendations based on testing results, risk assessments, and product readiness.

  • Networking and Security Test Leadership

    • Provide technical leadership across firewall capabilities, including stateful firewalling, NAT, IPSec and SSL VPNs, routing, and high availability.

    • Oversee testing of security services such as intrusion prevention, DPI-SSL, gateway antivirus, application control, and web filtering.

    • Review product requirements, design documents, and architecture proposals to identify quality, security, and reliability risks.

    • Develop comprehensive test strategies covering functional behavior, end-to-end customer workflows, throughput, performance, scalability, and stress testing.

    • Ensure robust validation of failover scenarios, upgrades and downgrades, configuration migrations, and long-duration system stability.

    • Champion negative testing and security-focused scenarios to validate resilience against misuse, abuse cases, and potential threats.

    • Automation and Test Infrastructure

      • Define the long-term automation roadmap across UI, API, CLI, and end-to-end testing, with measurable coverage and effectiveness goals.

      • Partner with automation leaders to develop scalable, reliable test frameworks integrated into CI/CD pipelines.

      • Improve automated test suite stability by reducing flaky tests and strengthening the reliability and usefulness of test results.

      • Oversee test environment strategy across physical hardware appliances, virtual firewalls, and cloud deployments.

      • Collaborate with infrastructure teams on test environment availability, capacity planning, and operational reliability.

      • Quality Metrics and Continuous Improvement

        • Track key quality indicators, including defect leakage, production escape rates, regression effectiveness, automation return on investment, and test flakiness.

        • Lead regular release readiness reviews and communicate quality risks, trends, and recommendations to senior stakeholders.

        • Conduct root cause analyses for production defects and customer-impacting incidents, addressing systemic quality gaps.

        • Translate customer and field feedback into preventive testing improvements and stronger engineering practices.

        • People Leadership and Stakeholder Collaboration

          • Build, mentor, and retain a strong QA leadership team comprising managers, technical leads, and senior engineers.

          • Establish clear performance expectations, career development pathways, and technical growth plans.

          • Influence engineering and product leadership to prioritize quality, reliability, security, and customer outcomes.

          • Represent the QA function in leadership discussions, cross-functional reviews, and customer escalations.

          Requirements:

          • Professional experience: 10+ years of total technical experience, including at least 2 years in an engineering management or leadership role.

          • Networking expertise: Strong hands-on understanding of networking and security fundamentals, including TCP/IP, routing, NAT, VPN technologies, high availability, authentication mechanisms, and intrusion prevention or deep packet inspection concepts.

          • Domain experience: Proven experience testing firewall products, network security solutions, or comparable complex system software. A strong networking background is essential for this position.

          • Quality ownership: Demonstrated ability to lead quality assurance for complex software releases, establish testing strategies, and manage release readiness and risk.

          • People management: Experience leading, developing, and scaling QA teams, including collaboration across locations and time zones.

          • Automation and CI/CD: Strong knowledge of test automation strategy, automated regression testing, continuous integration, continuous delivery, and quality engineering practices.

          • Technical judgment: Ability to assess architecture and design decisions, identify security and reliability risks, and develop comprehensive test coverage for complex systems.

          • Communication and influence: Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to align technical teams and influence senior decision-makers.

          • Preferred platform experience: Previous experience with SonicOS or comparable firewall operating systems is an advantage.

          • Additional preferred qualifications: Familiarity with security and compliance frameworks such as FIPS, Common Criteria, or SOC 2; experience testing hybrid hardware, virtual, and cloud environments; and experience handling customer escalations and field issue root cause analysis.

          • Location and work arrangements: The role is based in Pune, India. Candidates should confirm any relocation expectations and applicable working arrangements during the hiring process.

          Benefits:

          • Location flexibility: The role is advertised with remote-work tagging, although the listed location is Pune, India; the precise remote or hybrid arrangement should be confirmed.

          • Leadership opportunity: Shape quality strategy for critical network security software and influence release decisions at scale.

          • Technical impact: Work on complex firewall technologies, security services, automation frameworks, and large-scale test infrastructure.

          • Professional growth: Mentor engineering leaders, strengthen technical leadership capabilities, and influence cross-functional engineering practices.

          • Continuous improvement: Drive measurable advances in automation coverage, testing effectiveness, release predictability, and customer reliability.

          • Collaborative environment: Partner with engineering, product, DevOps, release management, and support teams.

          • Compensation and employee benefits: Salary range, healthcare coverage, paid leave, bonuses, and other specific benefits were not provided in the available job description and should be confirmed with the hiring team.

          • Equal opportunity: The employer states a commitment to fair employment practices and an inclusive workplace.