Kp Kumar

Results-driven QA Manager (Verification & Validation) who turns quality from a cost centre into a competitive advantage. Across 18 years spanning Medical Devices, Life Sciences, Pharmacovigilance, FinTech, and Healthcare IT, I have built and scaled QA organisations from the ground up, driven shift-left transformations that shrank regression cycles by 35%, and embedded AI/GenAI-assisted testing that lifted automation coverage to 72%. I have 15+ years of experience in Verification & Validation of Medical devices, Test Engineering, Quality Engineering, Product Validation, or related disciplines.

Manager –QA/Software Testing - NTT Data (From SGR Info Systems) - Bengaluru, India (2022-08 - 2026-01) - Scaled QA organization from 28 to 60+ engineers in under 12 months while maintaining 100% project delivery SLAs across 5 simultaneous client engagements.

• Leading and contribute to solutioning for Medical Devices V&V, software testing, systems testing, UAT, regression automation, quality engineering and sustaining engineering opportunities.
• Provide practical architecture guidance for test automation frameworks across UI, API, integration, data, regression, smoke, performance and continuous testing contexts.
• Shape AI-enabled testing solutions using LLMs, RAG, AI agents, workflow automation, intelligent analytics and AI-assisted SDLC approaches.
• Collaborate with AI CoEs and engineering teams to build demos, POCs, accelerators, adoption roadmaps and business cases for AI-enabled test engineering transformation - Support medical-device solutioning across product development, verification, validation, release, maintenance, sustenance and post-market quality phases.
• Bring regulated-domain awareness into automation solutions through traceability, risk-based testing, evidence generation, documentation discipline and audit-ready practices.
• Prepare, review, and approve SOPs and other GMP/GDP documentation in compliance with corporate and regulatory requirements to ensure alignment with procedures, current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP), Good Distribution Practices (GDP), and other applicable regulations.
• Reduced post-production defect leakage by 40% within 8 months by introducing a shift-left testing mandate, mandatory peer-review gates, and real-time defect density dashboards.
• Lifted automation coverage from 31% to 72% by championing a zero-code/Playwright-first framework, cutting manual regression effort by ~2,200 person-hours per quarter.
• Interpret and apply global healthcare regulations (e.g., IEC 62304, ISO 13485) to testing practices and documentation.
• Define and drive V&V strategies, standards, methodologies, and best practices for Connected Products - Ensure adherence to Agile/Scrum delivery practices and maintain high-quality technical documentation standards.
• Lead end-to-end verification and validation activities throughout the product development lifecycle.
• Participate in architecture and design reviews to enhance product quality, reliability, security, and testability.
• Define and drive the Verification & Validation (V&V) strategy, quality objectives, and testing governance across the Protection Portfolio.
• Work closely with cross-functional teams, including design engineers, project managers, and quality assurance teams, to ensure seamless integration of verification and validation activities into the overall development process - Determines project staff assignments and schedules work to meet completion dates and R&D deliverables. Establishes cross-functional team relationships.
• Integrated GenAI-assisted test case generation into the CI/CD pipeline, accelerating test authoring speed by 55% for new feature drops.
• Drove API-first test strategy using Postman + Newman; REST API test suites now gate every sprint release, eliminating 3 recurring production incidents linked to contract drift.
• Partnered with DevOps leadership to embed quality gates in 12 CI/CD pipelines, enabling fortnightly release cadence (previously monthly). Lead QA – UAT and Accessibility Testing - Freyr Software Services - Bengaluru, India (2020-03 - 2022-08) IMPACT Product | Healthcare Regulatory Intelligence | Team: 72 engineers across 3 projects - Managed a 102-engineer QA function across 3 concurrent product lines; zero critical-severity escapes to production during 24-month tenure.
• Rebuilt the regression suite from scratch using Selenium WebDriver — test execution time dropped from 18 hours to 6 hours, unblocking weekly release cadence.
• Authored and enforced a risk-based test strategy for a cloud-hosted SaaS regulatory platform, aligning coverage to FDA and EU MDR requirements; audit passed with 0 major findings.
• Designed a structured Power-Up programme for 35 mid-level engineers; 12 were promoted within 12 months, reducing attrition from 28% to 11%.
• Established defect triage SLAs (P1 resolved < 4 hrs, P2 < 24 hrs) that cut mean-time-to-resolution by 38% and improved client CSAT scores by 22 points. Sr. QA Manager- Functional Verification - Fore C Software Ltd (Client: PFSweb Global Services) - Bengaluru, India (2015-09 - 2020-03) - Delivered end-to-end QA for a high-traffic e-commerce fulfilment platform serving 5M+ monthly active users; maintained 99.9% system availability through disciplined pre-release performance testing.
• Introduced HP LoadRunner-based load testing benchmarks; identified and resolved 7 critical bottlenecks before Black Friday peak, preventing an estimated $1.2M in potential SLA penalties.
• Led cross-functional test teams of 20 across India and USA; unified status reporting reduced stakeholder escalations by 65%.
• Implemented TestRail as the team's single source of truth for test management, improving traceability and audit readiness — audit preparation time reduced by 50%. Team Lead – Software QA - ArisGlobal Software Services - Bengaluru, India (2012-10 - 2015-08) Client: Abbott (USA) | Domain: Pharmacovigilance & Drug Safety | ARISg 6.4 Platform - Owned QA for ARISg 6.4, a centralised pharmacovigilance system used across all Abbott units worldwide — zero CAPA-worthy defects reached FDA submission stage.
• Designed and executed 1,200+ test cases covering adverse event reporting workflows (FDA 21 CFR Part 803), achieving 98% first-pass test execution rate.
• Automated regression suite in HP QTP 10.0; reduced manual effort for bi-monthly releases by 60% and eliminated 3 recurring regression defects. Team Lead – Software QA - SLK Software Services Pvt Ltd - Bengaluru, India (2011-06 - 2012-10) Client: 5/3 Bank (USA) | Domain: Retail Banking & Insurance - Led a 14-member QA team across Account Management and F1 Direct Insurance portal projects; delivered 2 major releases on schedule with zero post-go-live severity-1 defects.
• Drove HP QTP automation for a.NET banking application; automated 340 regression test cases, saving 80+ manual testing hours per release cycle. Consultant - Polaris Software Labs (2008-01 - 2011-06) Clients: Citi Group (CMBS), Bank of England (BACS), Scotia Bank - BACS (Bank of England): Validated a peak-load payment engine processing 41M transactions/day; performance tests confirmed 100M transaction/4-hour throughput target — system passed central bank certification.
• Citi Group (CAAST): Delivered functional, regression, and UAT coverage for a Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities origination platform spanning 6 modules; defect density reduced 30% release-over-release.
• Scotia Bank: Executed phased test coverage for a 3-phase investment platform modernisation; Phase 1 go-live achieved with 0 severity-1 defects. Sr.

Software

Engineer - Wipro Technologies - Bengaluru, India (2005-12 - 2007-11)

B.Tech - Information Technology - Madras University (2003 - 2003)