Grainger is North America's leading distributor of maintenance, repair, and operating products and services. Our wide assortment, deep expertise, innovative technology solutions and unparalleled customer service keep customers' operations running and their people safe.

We're looking for passionate people who can move our company forward. We have a welcoming workplace where you can build a career for yourself while fulfilling our purpose to keep the world working. We embrace new ways of thinking and recognize everyone is an individual. Find your way at Grainger.

Reporting to the Director of Engineering Effectiveness, The Practice Lead- Quality will be an expert in software testing and quality practices. The Practice Lead will run a Centers of Enablement (CoE). They will review quality practices at the team level and guide improvements throughout the engineering teams. Further they will gain a deep understanding of the teams' challenges through immersive collaboration and data to promote adoption of modern practices on the digital transformation journey and to identify opportunities for training and upskilling of staff.

The Practice Lead will become familiar with the engineering practices of all teams in Product Engineering through a range of tools, assessments, and working with the team. The practice lead will help shape the future of engineering practices at Grainger in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team.

You will partner with the leader of the Community of Practice (CoP) assuring the CoE and CoP work together. The Practice Lead will also partner with the Director of Engineering Effectiveness and other engineering leads to make sure that new job postings, interview materials, and career progression paths correctly reflect the required skills for a modern technology organization. You will also help build a continual learning environment where everyone has the opportunity to learn and growth in a supportive environment.

Practice Lead responsibilities:

• Center of Enablement: The Practice Lead will be the lead for the Quality Engineering Center of Enablement (CoE). The CoE purpose is to ensure productivity enhancements are delivered and monitored.
• The practice lead will work across GTG to understand and collect data on the flow of value and feedback from both internal and external stakeholders. The CoE purpose is to ensure continual learning is captured and shared so that good practices do not stay localized.
• The Practice Lead will be an expert in software testing and quality practices and will be personally and tactically be able to drive improvement. They will be advocates for modern practices and help provide metrics related to the effectiveness of engineering teams. The Practice Lead will work with the Director of Engineering Effectiveness to uncover process improvements and educational opportunities.
• In addition to the CoE, the Practice Lead will be supportive of a Community of Practice by encouraging an existing community. The Community of Practice will function as a more informal means of learning. The Practice Lead will build agendas, coordinate speakers to present to the group.
• Driving test designs and implementation that are sustainable overtime and leading test case management practices within product engineering.
• They will work in a hybrid environment of onsite and remote work arrangements.
• The Practice Lead will be the "go-to" person to build the concept and construct of the Center of Enablement. There will be multiple CoEs and CoPs built based on practice areas within engineering and you will work with other leads to create a cohesive sense of how community is built and yet allow for each community to create its own sense of individuality.
• Work with domain leads, architects and others to ensure engineered solutions can be tested effectively and quickly, enabling fast feedback.
• Promote vision for focus area to diverse audiences (Product, Engineering Leadership, Practitioners)
• Continuous Improvement: Use feedback from teams, managers, and collaborators, the Practice Lead, along with other practice leaders, will create training materials or programs to reduce anti-patterns of good engineering practices.
• Role-based Coaching: The Practice Lead will provide direct coaching for team-members or leaders.

Engineering Organization responsibilities:

• Practice Leadership: Work with other Practice Leaders who focus on organizational continuous improvement based on their practice. (i.e., A Quality Engineering Practice Leader would focus on improving the skills and practices of all engineers. A Development Practice Lead will focus on software implementation methods.)
• Centers of Enablement: The Practice Lead will create the Center of Enablement in collaboration with the Director of Engineering Effectiveness
• Training Programs: In collaboration with the Director of Engineering Effectiveness, create training programs for upskilling members of the engineering organization. Coordinate bringing in external resources for training. These programs should use SMART goals and include a variety of methods to maximize potential impact.
• Oversee immersion practices to re-skill and mentor talent (e.g. Dojos)

• A bachelor's degree in computer science, information systems or a related study or equivalent project-related experience.
• 10+ years of related experience
• Exposure to multiple diverse technologies, engineering practices, and methods of code delivery.
• Experience with creating a range of tests such as unit, functional, regression and resiliency and a deep understanding of the SDLC environment required to be successful, including data setup.
• Experience isolating loosely coupled solutions and testing them in a way that provides feedback to teams in hours not days or weeks.
• Experience creating upskilling programs for engineering practices.
• Experience with mentoring technical people and developing high-performing teams.
• Comprehensive knowledge of best engineering practices.
• Knowledge of the IT industry and information technologies at a high and detailed level.
• Experience with geographically distributed teams in a matrixed environment.

With benefits starting day one, Grainger is committed to your safety, health and wellbeing. Our programs provide choice and flexibility to meet our team members' individual needs. Check out some of the rewards available to you at Grainger

• Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans
• Competitive paid time off (PTO) and 6 company holidays per year
• Automatic 6% 401(k) company contribution each pay period
• Employee discounts, parental leave, 3:1 match on donations and tuition reimbursement
• A comprehensive set of emotional, financial, physical and social wellbeing programs

We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, or veteran status. We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.