Summary
Overview
Work history
Education
Skills
Certification
CAREER MILESTONES
Timeline
Generic

Ganesh Vadivel

Basingstoke,Hampshire

Summary

Experienced Automation Lead with 20 years in quality engineering, specialising in developing test frameworks from inception. Developed four frameworks using a declarative regression DSL on a Java engine and a Playwright/TypeScript suite. Expertise in AI-driven tools for test pack generation and verification, facilitating rapid technology deployment. Extensive mobile banking experience with nine years on the RBS programme, showcasing effective planning and execution in system calibration.

Overview

1
1
Certification
20
20
years of professional experience

Work history

Lead Quality Engineer / Senior SDET

Celer Technologies
London
2022.04 - 2026.07
  • Established QA function from scratch. Hired, coached and led the team, defined processes, and formalised independent testing as a gate in the SDLC, enabling QA to own release sign-off on a platform where matching defects have regulatory and financial implications.
  • Own the E2E layer. Built the Playwright/TypeScript suite for the trading UI from zero — resilient locators over grid-heavy screens, event-aware waits instead of sleeps, and runs gated in CI on every merge.
  • Impact-targeted regression. Introduced a code knowledge graph over the platform codebase so regression scope is selected by change impact and call-chain analysis instead of run-everything, cutting feedback time while keeping risk coverage defensible.
  • Centralised AI in automation design. Re-architected regression delivery using agentic tooling: agents generate test packs from functional scenario tickets, a second agent layer reviews them against the matching engine, and engineers gate the merge, reducing specification-to-merged-test turnaround from days to same-day.
  • Trained the AI on the platform itself. Invested months encoding the platform’s domain into the tooling: architecture decision records and graph-anchored knowledge claims agents cite instead of re-delivering, persistent memory so context survives between sessions, and output calibrated through iterative course-correction until generated tests matched house style and domain reality.
  • Frameworks from scratch, repeatedly. Designed the regression DSL for the CLOB order lifecycle — limit orders crossing the book, IOC semantics, demand/cancel chains, partial fills — plus REST Assured API and wire-level message layers, all built with no existing infrastructure and event-awaiting assertions for speed and stability.
  • Developed Python tooling layer comprising ~18K lines across 76 modules: scenario generators, fail-closed quality gates (deploy refusal, stale-version and config-drift detection), blast-radius/completeness analysis, golden-trace diffing and coverage reconciliation, all orchestrated by a single pipeline entry point.
  • FX and capital markets trading platform: central limit order book, order management, market data.

Lead Quality Engineer

Discover Financial Services
Farnborough
2019.08 - 2022.04
  • Led QA team of 6–12 engineers, owning test strategy, plans, and exit reports with final sign-off on SIT releases.
  • Developed programme-wide framework for Cucumber/Java automation testing on Step Functions, DynamoDB, and S3; managed deployments with Terraform and Jenkins CI.
  • Collaborated on release scoping and prioritisation with delivery manager and chaired defect management as single point of contact for testing.
  • Created AWS serverless components for payment applications within UK card programme.

Test Manager

IBM / Monitise
London
2010.08 - 2019.08
  • Oversaw entire project lifecycle from requirement analysis to final sign-off. from requirement review to sign-off, ensuring comprehensive plans, traceability, completion reports, and daily updates for both IBM and RBS; engaged in hands-on analysis of server logs, Oracle 11g, and defect root-cause analysis.
  • Significantly shortened regression cycle to enhance testing efficiency. Automated server-side API regression with SoapUI, Groovy and batch scripting, cutting the total regression cycle by roughly 50%.
  • Shifted testing left by collaborating with development to create backend simulators, reducing reliance on RBS test data, and championed BDD adoption through specification-by-example, revealing previously missed test data requirements.
  • Monitored and maintained server-side quality for the RBS mobile banking applications, supporting native iOS and Android apps, covering payments, P2P, GetCash, and low-value payments.

Test Lead

Keane International (now NTT DATA)
Bangalore & London
2006.03 - 2010.08
  • Conducted functional, SIT, and UAT testing on the Everything Everywhere (Orange) web platform and managed testing and deployment onsite for three years.
  • Ensured high-quality software testing by creating detailed test plans and cases.
  • Led cross-functional teams to deliver project requirements within set timeframes.
  • Collaborated closely with project managers for successful implementation of software solutions.

Education

BE Mechanical Engineering -

Anna University (KLN College of Engineering)
Madurai, India

Skills

  • AI driven backend test automation framework

  • Test strategy planning

  • AI driven backend test framework

  • Java Selenium and REST Assured

  • API testing

  • Playwright testing framework

  • TDD/BDD methodologies

  • CI/CD and quality assurance

  • DevOps practices

  • Machine learning integration

  • Cloud services

  • TypeScript programming

  • Risk-based strategy

  • Industry-specific knowledge

  • Team management

Certification

  • Oracle Certified Associate, Java SE 8 Programmer — Oracle
  • IBM Design Thinking Practitioner
  • Cloud Java Developer — IBM

CAREER MILESTONES

  • 2006 Testing career begins on the EE (Orange) web platform — three years onsite client delivery
  • 2010 API automation halves regression time on the RBS mobile banking programme at IBM
  • 2019 Leading a 12-engineer QA organisation on AWS payment systems at Discover
  • 2022 Builds Celer’s QA function from zero for an FX trading platform
  • 2026 Agentic AI regression pipeline live: specification to merged, verified test — same day

Timeline

Lead Quality Engineer / Senior SDET

Celer Technologies
2022.04 - 2026.07

Lead Quality Engineer

Discover Financial Services
2019.08 - 2022.04

Test Manager

IBM / Monitise
2010.08 - 2019.08

Test Lead

Keane International (now NTT DATA)
2006.03 - 2010.08

BE Mechanical Engineering -

Anna University (KLN College of Engineering)
Ganesh Vadivel