Melody Ndung'u

Quality-focused software professional with over four years of experience in test planning, test execution, defect tracking, and UAT coordination across fintech and payment platforms. Brings a developer's perspective to quality assurance — understanding how software is built makes identifying failure points, writing precise test cases, and collaborating with engineering teams significantly more effective. Experienced in requirement traceability, release readiness sign-off, regression testing, REST and GraphQL API validation, RBAC security testing, and compliance testing against regulatory standards (CBK).

Proficient with Agile/Scrum SDLC, Confluence documentation, and cross-functional stakeholder collaboration. Committed to delivering software that is reliable, secure, and genuinely ready for users.

Frontend & Full-Stack Developer | Embedded QA & Testing Responsibilities at Cashia LTD (2022-01 – 2026-03)

• Contributed to QA governance by ensuring all test activities, deliverables, and documentation aligned with defined quality standards across the SDLC — from requirements review through to production sign-off.
• Identified recurring defect patterns and process gaps across multiple release cycles, providing structured input during retrospectives to improve first-time pass rates and reduce regression escapes.
• Designed and maintained test plans, test cases, and test scripts for functional, regression, and integration testing across five concurrent product lines — derived from business requirements, technical specifications, and collaborative sessions with developers and designers.
• Built and maintained Requirement Traceability Matrices (RTM) for the Compliance Reporting module, Merchant Portal, and Admin Portal — ensuring full test coverage for every functional requirement and change request.
• Conducted functional, regression, cross-browser, and cross-device testing across all major browsers and device types, logging defects with detailed steps to reproduce, expected vs. actual results, severity levels, and supporting evidence.
• Validated RESTful and GraphQL API integrations using manual testing techniques — verifying request/response contracts, error handling, HTTP status codes, authentication flows, and data accuracy across staging and production environments.
• Performed RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) testing to verify that permission boundaries were correctly enforced across all user roles, and that privilege escalation and unauthorised data access scenarios were properly handled.
• Managed the UAT process across fintech product releases — preparing test scenarios, supporting business users during execution, tracking defect resolution, and producing release readiness reports with go/no-go recommendations.
• Led CBK (Central Bank of Kenya) compliance testing for payment systems — defining acceptance criteria aligned to regulatory requirements, executing validation cycles, maintaining audit-ready traceability documentation, and coordinating formal sign-off with stakeholders.
• Reviewed defect trends and open risk items ahead of each release, contributing clear, structured input to release go/no-go decisions and ensuring no critical or high-severity defects reached production.
• Tracked and reported on quality metrics, including defect leakage rate, test case pass/fail ratios, requirement coverage, and UAT completion status — providing stakeholders with clear visibility into release health.
• Prepared QA status reports and test completion summaries shared with product owners and business stakeholders, highlighting outstanding risks, deferred items, and recommended actions.
• Partnered with business analysts and product owners to review requirements for testability, identify ambiguities, and define precise acceptance criteria before development began — reducing rework and late-stage defects.
• Integrated quality checks into Agile/Scrum ceremonies — participating in sprint planning, backlog refinement, and retrospectives, and advocating for quality gates at each stage of the delivery pipeline.
• Authored and maintained comprehensive QA and system documentation on Confluence, including test plans, defect logs, compliance sign-off records, architecture docs, and operational runbooks — creating a traceable audit trail for internal teams and external auditors.

BSc. in Information Technology – Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (2023 – 2025)

Diploma in Information Technology – Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (2020 – 2022)

Certificate in Android & Web Development – Zalego Institute (2020 – 2020)