Remote Lead QA Engineer - 12 Month FTC (we have office locations in Cambridge, Leeds and London)

Description:

• Genomics England partners with the NHS to provide whole genome sequencing diagnostics and supports researchers in finding disease causes and developing new treatments.
• The Lead QA Engineer will play a pivotal role in shaping testing practices, tackling quality challenges, and driving best practices across the organization.
• Responsibilities include acting as a cross-tribe source of expertise in automation, performance, resilience, and security testing.
• The role involves designing, building, and maintaining robust test frameworks with a strong emphasis on Java and Playwright.
• The Lead QA Engineer will guide squads in embedding automated, performance, and security testing into CI/CD pipelines.
• Mentoring QA engineers and developers to raise skills and standards is a key responsibility.
• The position requires producing clear documentation and “golden paths” to help squads adopt best practices.
• The Lead QA Engineer will collaborate with engineering leadership to embed test practices into CI/CD pipelines and shift testing left.
• The role includes defining, tracking, and reporting on testing effectiveness metrics and staying current with new tools and techniques.

Requirements:

• Strong hands-on programming experience with Java and Playwright is essential.
• Candidates must have demonstrable experience designing and maintaining automation frameworks such as Selenium WebDriver, JUnit, TestNG, and REST-assured.
• A proven track record in performance testing using tools like JMeter and Locust is required.
• Candidates should be confident with security testing tools such as OWASP Zap and Snyk.
• Experience embedding QA into CI/CD pipelines using tools like GitLab and Jenkins is necessary.
• Proven experience in designing and implementing scalable test automation strategies and frameworks across multiple projects is required.
• AWS/cloud-based testing experience, including Terraform, containers, serverless, and monitoring, is essential.
• Experience in mentoring, coaching, and leading on QA strategy is required.

Benefits:

• The position offers 30 days of holiday plus bank holidays, additional leave for long service, and the option to apply for up to 30 days of remote working abroad annually (subject to approval).
• Flexible working arrangements, enhanced maternity, paternity, and shared parental leave benefits are provided.
• A defined contribution pension plan is available, with Genomics England double-matching contributions up to 10%, along with life assurance and a Give As You Earn scheme.
• Individual learning budgets, support for training and certifications, and reimbursement for one annual professional subscription (subject to approval) are included.
• An employee recognition program and referral scheme are part of the benefits package.
• Health and wellbeing benefits include subsidized gym membership, a free Headspace account, access to an Employee Assistance Programme, eye tests, and flu jabs.