Prateek Dehran

Strategic Software Quality Engineering Manager with 14+ years of experience building high-performing SDET organizations and modernizing QA through AI-augmented testing and automation-first cultures. Expert in architecting scalable frameworks that increased coverage from 40% to 90% while leading the technical design of CI/CD pipelines and Shift-Left methodologies. Proven track record of leveraging AI/ML for predictive defect analytics and self-healing test maintenance to reduce release cycles by 30%. A dedicated mentor and cross-functional leader experienced in managing global teams, aligning quality initiatives with business goals.

Strategic Quality Leadership & Governance

• Risk-Based Strategy: Defining which areas of the product require deep automation versus manual exploratory testing based on business impact and code complexity.
• KPI & Metric Ownership: Establishing and tracking "North Star" metrics such as Defect Escape Rate, Automation Coverage, MTTR (Mean Time to Repair), and Test Execution Velocity.
• Budget & Tooling: Managing the total cost of quality, including selecting AI-augmented testing tools, cloud infrastructure for test environments, and vendor management.

Automation Architecture & Technical Oversight

• Framework Scalability: Overseeing the transition to modern frameworks (e.g., Playwright, Cypress, or Selenium with C#) that support parallel execution and cross-platform validation.
• AI & Innovation: Integrating AI/ML for self-healing scripts and predictive analytics to identify "flaky" tests and reduce maintenance overhead.
• Technical Standards: Setting the bar for code reviews within the SDET team, ensuring that automation code is as robust and performant as production code.

Continuous Integration & "Shift-Left" Integration

• Pipeline Orchestration: Designing "Quality Gates" in Jenkins, GitLab, or Azure DevOps that automatically block unstable code from reaching production.
• Shift-Left Initiatives: Driving testing earlier in the lifecycle by implementing Unit Testing standards, TDD (Test-Driven Development), and API contract testing.
• Environment Management: Ensuring that ephemeral test environments are provisioned and destroyed automatically, reducing "environment contention" between teams.

Team Mentorship & Talent Development

• Skill Transformation: Leading training programs to upskill manual testers in coding (Java, C#, Python) and cloud infrastructure.
• Performance Management: Setting clear OKRs for individual contributors and providing the technical mentorship needed to hit them.
• Global Coordination: Managing the synergy between onshore and offshore teams to ensure 24/7 quality coverage without communication silos.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Product Alignment

• The "Three Amigos": Collaborating with Product Managers and Lead Developers during the design phase to ensure requirements are testable and clear.
• Release Governance: Providing the final "Quality Sign-off" for enterprise releases, ensuring that all risks are documented, mitigated, or accepted by stakeholders.
• Customer Advocacy: Analyzing production telemetry and support tickets to identify gaps in the testing strategy and closing those loops in the next sprint.