Head of DevOps / QA Competency Center

Job Overview

Head of DevOps / QA Competency Center

Reporting to: Chief Technology Officer

Location: Lyon

Type of contract: Fixed‑term Contract

Duration: 36 months

Grade: 3

Number of posts: 1

Level of security screening: Enhanced

Deadline for application: 26 April 2026

INTERPOL actively encourages applications from women and nationals of member countries that are currently unrepresented among our staff.

DUTY 1: Competency Leadership, Squad Integration and Technical Enablement

• Lead the DevOps and QA Competency Centre.
• Define role profiles, career paths, mentoring and training plans.
• Ensure adequate staffing of squads with DevOps engineers and QA specialists aligned to product priorities.
• Conduct performance management and foster a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement.
• Embed DevOps and QA professionals in product squads; ensure they are enabled with common practices, templates, and tools.
• Facilitate knowledge sharing via chapters/communities of practice and provide hands‑on coaching to squads.
• Manage rotation of staff across squads to spread knowledge, foster cross‑product expertise, and ensure backup coverage for key resources.

DUTY 2: DevOps Strategy, Standards and Toolchains

• In collaboration with engineering, define and maintain the DevOps strategy, standards, and reference toolchains (including source control, CI, CD, artifact management, infrastructure‑as‑code, configuration management, and observability).
• Ensure consistency, security, and cost‑effectiveness across squads and environments.

DUTY 3: CI/CD and Environment Management

• Design, operate, and continuously improve reusable CI/CD pipelines, environments, and deployment patterns.
• Enable automated, traceable, and auditable builds, releases, and rollbacks across on‑premises and cloud platforms, in collaboration with squads and operations teams.

DUTY 4: Quality Assurance Governance and Test Automation

• Define QA policies, test strategies, and quality gates (unit, integration, end‑to‑end, performance, accessibility, security scanning).
• Promote test automation frameworks and ensure defect prevention, traceability, and measurable product quality through standardized metrics (e.g., coverage, defect density, MTTR).

DUTY 5: DevSecOps and Compliance

• Integrate security‑by‑design into pipelines and testing (SAST, SCA, DAST, secrets and dependency checks).
• Ensure compliance with INTERPOL security, data protection, and audit requirements; coordinate with the ICT Security Office for risk assessments, vulnerability management, and remediation tracking.

DUTY 6: Release, Change and Incident Collaboration

• Own quality gates for releases and coordinate with Product Managers, Platform/Operations, and Change Advisory bodies.
• Contribute to incident and problem reviews with data from pipelines and observability, driving systemic improvements.

DUTY 7: Metrics, Transparency and Continuous Improvement

• Define and publish delivery and quality KPIs (lead time for change, deployment frequency, change failure rate, MTTR, test pass rates).
• Run technical audits and retrospectives to drive improvements in reliability, speed, and maintainability.

Qualifications

• At least five years’ university education.

• Minimum of 8 years’ experience in the area and proven experience in management.
• Proven experience in team management and technical leadership.
• Experience in planning, development and managing complex tasks with minimum supervision.
• Proven experience in DevOps, Software Engineering and Quality Assurance.
• Hands‑on experience designing and operating CI/CD pipelines and test automation at scale.
• Sound background in Agile product delivery and collaboration within cross‑functional squads.

• Fluency in English is required and proficiency in another official language of the Organization (Arabic, French, Spanish) would be an asset.

• Proven experience in Agile environments.
• Ability to manage multidisciplinary teams and complex platforms.
• Proven knowledge of DevOps platforms (e.g., Git, CI servers, artifact registries), infrastructure‑as‑code, cloud and container orchestration, and automated testing frameworks.
• Strong communication skills, both in written and oral form.
• Experience in managing performance and supporting career development of team members.

• Personal and professional maturity.
• Ability to maintain objectivity and apply logical, specifically inductive, reasoning.
• Ability to work in teams as well as individually.
• Ability to work persistently and under pressure.
• Good social, specifically multicultural skills.
• Initiative, creativity (original and critical thinking) and curiosity.
• Looking forward and attentive to innovation.
• Ability to develop and maintain good professional networks.
• Ability to synthesize.
• Very good organization skills.
• Very good listening skills.

Perform any other duties as required by the hierarchy.