UAT and Production Validation Manager, Merchant Services Product

Wells Fargo•Irving, TX

3d•Hybrid

About The Position

Wells Fargo is seeking a Senior Lead Digital Product Manager to serve as the UAT and Production Validation Manager. The role leads an established organization responsible for User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and Production Validation, assessing and transforming both functions while ensuring strong ongoing execution. The leader will evaluate organizational responsibilities, skills, capacity, processes, tooling, governance, documentation, and coverage, then establish a future-state operating model aligned with business priorities, delivery demand, complexity, and risk. The position defines and implements operating frameworks for both capabilities, covering roles and responsibilities, capacity and resource models, intake and prioritization, governance, standards, engagement expectations, metrics, escalation paths, and controls. It drives adoption across Product, Technology, Operations, Risk, and other partners. UAT validates solutions before production against business requirements, intended user and merchant experiences, and critical end-to-end processes. Production Validation checks after deployment that critical functionality and business processes operate as intended in production, and identifies and escalates unexpected behavior or business impacts. The leader will advance a risk- and value-based test automation approach to improve coverage, capacity, repeatability, efficiency, and scalability while preserving business-driven testing where judgment and the user or merchant perspective are essential. The role also leads and develops a high-performing organization, supports complex and higher-risk initiatives, and uses metrics and validation results to improve delivery practices and business outcomes.

Requirements

7+ years of digital product management or leadership experience, or equivalent demonstrated through work experience, training, military experience, education, or a combination.
3+ years of management or leadership experience.

Nice To Haves

Experience building, transforming, or significantly maturing UAT, Production Validation, testing, or comparable quality functions, including assessing current capabilities and implementing future-state operating models.
Experience establishing organizational structures, governance, capacity models, roles and responsibilities, engagement models, processes, standards, controls, documentation, and performance measures.
Strong knowledge of UAT and Production Validation, their distinct objectives, ownership models, execution requirements, and relationship to unit, system/integration, point-to-point, end-to-end, and regression testing.
Extensive knowledge of Jira for requirements traceability, testing workflows, execution, defect management, capacity management, reporting, and metrics.
Experience defining and implementing test automation strategies, evaluating opportunities based on business value, risk, frequency, repeatability, and scalability.
Experience translating business requirements and intended user or merchant experiences into testing scenarios, validation strategies, and readiness criteria.
Experience leading testing and validation across multiple concurrent, complex, and higher-risk initiatives.
Experience establishing and using quality, execution, defect, coverage, readiness, capacity, automation, and Production Validation metrics to drive decisions and continuous improvement.
Strong risk management and judgment, including identifying material issues, articulating business impact, and influencing implementation, escalation, and remediation decisions.
Ability to influence senior leaders and build partnerships across Product, Technology, Operations, Risk, and business functions.
People leadership experience building high-performing teams and establishing scalable, repeatable, well-documented operating practices.

Responsibilities

Assess and transform the existing UAT and Production Validation organization, establishing a scalable future-state operating model, organizational structure, governance framework, capacity model, standards, processes, and performance measures.
Define ownership, responsibilities, engagement points, intake and prioritization processes, escalation paths, controls, and expectations across Product, Technology, Operations, Risk, and business partners.
Lead UAT strategy and execution, testing business requirements, user and merchant experiences, and critical end-to-end processes before production implementation.
Establish testing scope, scenarios, environments, data requirements, coverage, dependencies, entry and exit criteria, defect management, and readiness reporting based on business impact, complexity, and risk.
Lead a distinct Production Validation strategy to validate critical functionality and business processes after deployment and ensure issues are quickly identified, escalated, and addressed.
Use UAT and Production Validation results to strengthen upstream testing, release readiness, controls, and broader delivery practices.
Define and advance test automation strategy, prioritizing opportunities by risk, business value, repeatability, testing frequency, scalability, and return, and balancing automated and manual validation.
Establish metrics for capacity, quality, coverage, defects, readiness, execution, automation effectiveness, and business outcomes to support decisions and continuous improvement.
Lead and develop a high-performing organization with differentiated UAT and Production Validation expertise, aligning people and financial resources to business priorities and delivery demand.
Partner with and influence senior leaders across Product, Technology, Operations, Risk, and other functions to manage dependencies, resolve issues, and support moderate- to high-risk business and digital initiatives.
Foster accountability, disciplined execution, talent development, continuous improvement, and measurable business outcomes.