Jay De Castro
Lincolnshire,IL
Summary
Experienced Manager, Quality & Execution with 18 years of experience in the finance and insurance industry. Proven expertise in critical integration and regulatory projects, Agile/SAFE, globally distributed cross-functional teams, end-to-end testing, identifying and leveraging automation, and process improvement.
Overview
23
23
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Sr BA/Quality Engineer
Americo
07.2023 - Current
- Developed quality assurance protocols to enhance product reliability and customer satisfaction.
- Conducted root cause analysis to identify defects and implement corrective actions effectively.
- Collaborated with cross-functional teams to improve manufacturing processes and reduce waste.
- Led training sessions for team members on quality standards and inspection techniques.
- Implemented continuous improvement initiatives that increased operational efficiency significantly.
- Mentored junior engineers in best practices for quality control and process optimization.
- Improved customer satisfaction levels with timely resolution of non-conformance issues and effective corrective actions.
- Contributed to root cause analysis to determine core reason for failures and errors.
Manager, Software Quality Engineering & Delivery
New York Life Insurance
03.2017 - 07.2021
- Managed a globally distributed team of 24 quality engineers and test execution/delivery leads to execute projects for customer service, policy maintenance, billing & collections, document management, systems infrastructure upgrade, and interactive voice response (IVR) applications within the Service domain with an annual budget of $1.5 - 2.0 million.
- Reduced headcount from 87 to 24 in 2 years by improving test process, revamping test strategies, increasing automation, and closely working with business and portfolio managers on estimating and forecasting resource needs.
- Led the team responsible for the test planning, execution and delivery of several complex and regulatory initiatives. This saved the company $2,000,000 in potential fines from regulators.
- Reduced time to market by an average of 40% by creating a playbook and establishing the role of an Overall Test Lead to coordinate across multiple applications and LOBs in an Agile Release Train (ART).
- Led Shared Services and System Teams for the Service domain Agile Release Train.
- Created a domain-wide end-to-end E2E strategy that reduced defect leakage by over 70% and reduced time to market by 25%, by driving alignment across the organization and involving business partners in E2E testing along with developers and testers, through improved process and communication.
- Managed the upgrades of Oracle and Cobol across multiple domains and reduced the QA cost by 50% by optimizing resources and processes over several releases.
- Implemented an API and service-level (rather than GUI) test automation strategy that resulted in an increase in automation coverage from 30% to 75%.
- Notable projects include: Payment Lockbox provider switch, integration of 3rd party administrator into the billing and payment system, rewrite of traditional IVR to natural language/AI IVR, modernization of web-based customer portal, modernization of document management system and correspondence systems; and several regulatory projects critical to NYL being able to continue selling product.
Lead QA, Risk Management Simulation & Automation
Options Clearing Corporation
04.2015 - 03.2017
- Created and performed risk management simulation tests for model validation and submission to regulators (SEC).
- Improved accuracy and efficiency of risk management simulations by developing 24/7 simulation scripts using Unix, UC4, SQL, and VBA Excel.
- Recipient of the Chairman's award for Leadership in Risk Simulation testing.
- Guided the six-fold increase in the number of teams using automation by providing training and support for the internally developed automation framework.
- Managed the automation effort for Appian applications that resulted in 90% regression suite coverage and for internet services that led to 95% automated daily sanity checks.
- Reduced test resource needs by 30% for enterprise banking system upgrades through test strategy realignments, test plan and test execution methodologies, and SOP documentation.
- Member of the SDLC steering committee on transitioning from waterfall to agile methodology.
Lead QA, Risk Management Systems
Intercontinental Exchange
02.2014 - 04.2015
- Led quality assurance efforts on a new VAR-based model to ensure accuracy of daily margin value investors must post to back their derivatives trades.
- Created a VBA tool to validate output data that reduced manual testing efforts by over 75%, thereby improving test coverage and efficiency by 40%.
- Revamped test strategy led to increased test coverage by 65% and reduced regression test cycle from 15 days to 8 days.
Lead Change Consultant, QA Process and Agile Methodology
Baxter Credit Union
06.2013 - 12.2013
- Established new processes and mentored the newly reorganized QA team in transitioning from waterfall to agile methodology.
- Implemented the use of Visual Studio 2012 ALM and Test Manager to manage test inventory, execution, and bug reporting, increasing overall efficiency by 45%.
- Developed a testing strategy for a significant overhaul of an online banking application that includes mobile banking using both Native and WAP applications.
- Identified and implemented test process improvement that netted a 66% efficiency gain in test execution, by integrating testing into the Agile process, and re-designing the testing function as a cross-functional team.
Manager of Quality Assurance, Production Support for Trading Systems
CME Group
01.2008 - 06.2013
- Managed a globally distributed team addressing production issues, enterprise infrastructure integrity, and data center build-out initiatives.
- Reduced average testing turnaround time from 12 hours to 7 hours by merging two separate quality assurance production support groups, improving processes, and cross-training staff while increasing the number of supported applications by 33%.
- Automated production end-to-end testing, which reduced testing time by 80% and increased the team's efficiency by 50%, by working with the development and operations staff to create scripts and procedures.
- Led quality assurance efforts for a new data center and a disaster recovery environment to comply with CFTC mandates, thus increasing the reliability of trading systems.
- Reduced test cases by 45% while increasing coverage by 30% for an electronic handheld trading system by refactoring data sets and test cases.
Business Quality Assurance Analyst, Foreign Exchange Trading Platform
UBS Investment Bank
07.2003 - 11.2007
- Ensured timely and successful delivery of foreign-exchange trading applications to production by collaborating with a global team of developers, business users, and offshore testers to coordinate the execution of automated test scripts with daily builds and manual testing of system functionality.
- Improved the testing process by creating reusable automated testbeds that reduced the regression test cycle by 50%, resulting in the Foreign Exchange Trading Platform going live on time.
- Increased test coverage by 50% and reduced test cycle from 14 to 5 days through test case optimization.
Education
MBA - International Management
Lake Forest Graduate School of Management
Lake Forest, ILBS - Telecommunications Management
DeVry Institute of Technology
Addison, ILCertification
- Certificate in Agile Practices, Northwestern University
- Certified Tester, AT
- SQA Testing Essentials, ATSQA-ISTQB
- Certified Tester, Foundation Level Agile Tester, ATSQA-ISQTB
- Certified Tester, Foundation Level, ATSQA-ISQTB
- Certified Tester, Advanced Level Test Manager, ATSQA-ISQTB
Timeline
Sr BA/Quality Engineer
Americo
07.2023 - Current
Manager, Software Quality Engineering & Delivery
New York Life Insurance
03.2017 - 07.2021
Lead QA, Risk Management Simulation & Automation
Options Clearing Corporation
04.2015 - 03.2017
Lead QA, Risk Management Systems
Intercontinental Exchange
02.2014 - 04.2015
Lead Change Consultant, QA Process and Agile Methodology
Baxter Credit Union
06.2013 - 12.2013
Manager of Quality Assurance, Production Support for Trading Systems
CME Group
01.2008 - 06.2013
Business Quality Assurance Analyst, Foreign Exchange Trading Platform
UBS Investment Bank
07.2003 - 11.2007
BS - Telecommunications Management
DeVry Institute of Technology
MBA - International Management
Lake Forest Graduate School of Management