Test and Release Manager

Test and Release Manager - Start ASAP - Contract - Brussels - Hybrid

Next Venturers seeks an experienced Test and Release Manager to start ASAP on its Client project in Brussels.

Emerging technologies such as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), cloud, and API-driven ecosystems are reshaping financial market infrastructures. Euroclear seeks to seize these opportunities to develop innovative products, services, and capabilities that address market inefficiencies and strengthen its position as a leading financial market infrastructure provider.

The Innovation Tribe within IT is the delivery arm of these game-changing digital capabilities across business lines and entities. To support our growth and ambitions, we are reinforcing the team with a Test & Release Manager with experience or strong interest in DLT, working in a fast-paced and truly agile environment.

As Test & Release Manager, you will establish the end-to-end quality and release approach for D-FMI and related innovative solutions. You will ensure that changes are tested effectively, meet agreed acceptance criteria, and are introduced into production safely and predictably. Acting as the link between product, engineering, operations, security, risk, business stakeholders and external partners, you will coordinate test strategy, quality governance, release readiness, deployment planning and continuous improvement across the delivery lifecycle.

• Test strategy and governance: Define and maintain the overall test strategy, quality standards, test levels, entry and exit criteria, and governance across functional and non-functional testing.
• Test planning and coordination: Build integrated test plans aligned with delivery and release roadmaps; coordinate scope, environments, data, dependencies, resources and milestones across teams.
• Quality assurance: Ensure requirements and acceptance criteria are testable, quality risks are identified early, and appropriate evidence is available to support delivery decisions.
• Test execution oversight: Coordinate functional, integration, end-to-end, regression, performance, resilience, security and user-acceptance testing with internal teams and external partners.
• Defect management: Establish effective defect triage, prioritization, ownership and reporting; ensure critical defects are resolved or formally accepted before release.
• Test automation: Promote risk-based automation and continuous testing within CI/CD pipelines, improving coverage, speed, repeatability and feedback to delivery teams.
• Release planning: Establish and maintain the integrated release calendar, align scope and dependencies, identify conflicts, and coordinate milestones across product and technology teams.
• Release governance: Facilitate test-completion and release-readiness reviews, supporting go/no-go decisions with clear evidence on quality, risks, approvals, rollback plans and communications.
• Deployment coordination: Orchestrate production deployments with engineering, infrastructure, security, operations and external partners, ensuring clear ownership, sequencing and timely escalation.
• Reporting and transparency: Define and report meaningful quality and release indicators, including coverage, execution progress, defect trends, readiness and deployment outcomes.
• Stakeholder engagement: Maintain effective relationships with the Product Owner, business stakeholders, delivery teams, support functions and suppliers; communicate quality and release status clearly.
• Continuous improvement: Lead post-test and post-release reviews, identify root causes and turn lessons learned into prioritized improvements to processes, tooling and ways of working.

• Proven experience in software testing, quality assurance, release management or a comparable role in financial services or another regulated environment.
• Strong understanding of test-management practices, including test strategy, risk-based testing, defect management, traceability, evidence and quality reporting.
• Demonstrated experience coordinating complex testing and releases across multiple teams, systems, environments and external partners.
• Understanding software delivery lifecycles, Agile Scrum, DevOps and CI/CD practices.
• Experience with functional, integration, end-to-end, regression, user-acceptance and non-functional testing.
• Experience with release calendars, deployment planning, readiness assessments, risk management and post-implementation reviews.
• Ability to understand technical dependencies and quality risks and translate them into clear business impact, decisions and communications.
• Excellent stakeholder management, communication, facilitation and presentation skills.
• Strong analytical, organizational, prioritizat