Abu Dhabi, UAE · Open to connect

Head of QA, Release & Reliability

Engineering reliability at scale.

I lead engineering across quality, release, and reliability for 25+ product teams—building the systems, culture, and AI-augmented pipelines that let organizations ship with confidence.

22+
Years
25+
Teams Led
7
Global Banks
Pankaj Nakhat
Pankaj Nakhat
Head of QA, Release & Reliability · Abu Dhabi
01 What I'm Doing Now

Building the engineering systems that let 25 teams ship with confidence.

Leading quality, release, and reliability across a large product portfolio— implementing DORA metrics that teams actually use, building AI-augmented pipelines, and solving the hard reliability problems before they hit production.

Currently scaling a platform that gives 25+ product squads the tooling, observability, and confidence to ship faster without breaking things.

🤖

AI-Powered Testing

Multi-agent systems for test automation using Playwright, MCP, and LLMs. Practical reliability over self-healing buzzwords.

📊

LLM Evaluation Pipelines

Building evaluation pipelines for RAG systems using DeepEval. Prompt regression testing integrated into CI/CD.

Release & Reliability

Release management, incident response, observability, and DORA metrics wired into how teams actually work.

🎯

Engineering Coaching

ICAgile-certified coaching (ICP-ACC, ICP-ATF) and 1:1 mentorship for engineers, leads, and managers.

02 Skills & Stack

22 years. Multiple stacks. One north star.

From trading system reliability at JP Morgan to AI-augmented engineering at enterprise scale—the tools evolve, the engineering principles don't.

Test Automation
Playwright TypeScript Selenium Cypress REST Assured Postman k6 JMeter BDD / Gherkin
AI & LLM Testing
DeepEval MCP Claude API OpenAI RAG Evaluation Prompt Testing Multi-Agent Systems LangChain
CI/CD & DevOps
Azure DevOps GitHub Actions Jenkins Docker Kubernetes DORA Metrics Grafana
Languages
TypeScript Python Java JavaScript Bash SQL
Engineering Leadership
Engineering Strategy Team Scaling Agile Coaching (ICP-ACC) Release Management Incident Management OKR Alignment Technical Roadmapping
Domains
Fintech PropTech Trading Systems Blockchain / DLT Banking Payments Real Estate Tech
05 Background

Built quality practices where failure isn't an option.

Trading systems, blockchain, financial services, real estate tech. Two decades of figuring out how to make complex, high-stakes systems reliable—across four continents.

Investment Banking Global Payments Blockchain / DLT Real Estate Tech Trading Systems Retail Banking
2022 – Present
Current Role
Head of QA, Release & Reliability · Abu Dhabi
2019 – 2022
Visa
Quality Engineering Lead
2016 – 2019
R3 (Corda Blockchain)
QA Lead · Distributed Ledger Technology
2010 – 2016
JP Morgan · HSBC · Barclays · UBS
Senior Engineer / Test Architecture · Investment Banking
2004 – 2010
ThoughtWorks
Engineering Consultant · Agile Delivery
Mentorship & Coaching

Want to grow as an engineer or engineering leader?

I offer 1:1 mentorship for engineers and leads navigating AI in engineering, career transitions, platform reliability, or technical leadership challenges. Also available for team and organisational agile coaching (ICP-ACC, ICP-ATF).

Let's talk.

I write about engineering reliability, AI in software delivery, and building high-performing teams. Reach me on LinkedIn—or email directly.