Over time, you'll effectively become a guardian of the product, understanding where the risks and gaps are and continuously improving the team's approach to quality.

What we're looking for

We're open to people coming from Software Developer in Test, SDET, Automation Test Engineer or senior technical QA backgrounds.

The important thing is that you've previously taken ownership of testing for a complex software product and you're comfortable creating automation rather than simply maintaining what someone else has built.

You'll need strong experience with system and integration testing, including API testing, alongside the scripting or programming ability to automate those tests effectively.

You'll understand how to take requirements and turn them into clear test specifications, coverage and acceptance criteria, while still having the curiosity to look beyond the happy path and find the edge cases nobody has considered.

Experience with tools such as Playwright or equivalent automation frameworks, along with CI/CD and GitHub Actions, would fit particularly well. Some experience with Docker, Docker Compose or containerised test environments would also be valuable.

The platform is largely written in Go (Golang), but you don't need to be a Go developer. If you've worked with Go before, great. If not, being comfortable reading code and understanding how services interact is more important.

Experience testing microservices or distributed systems would also be useful, particularly if you're familiar with the less obvious ways those systems can fail.

More than just running tests

The team is specifically looking for someone proactive.

You'll work closely with developers, product and systems engineers, so you'll need to be comfortable asking questions, challenging assumptions and communicating when you see a risk.

If a requirement doesn't quite make sense, you'll question it.

If you spot an edge case, you'll investigate it.

If the current testing approach could be better, you'll be encouraged to change it.

You'll also have the opportunity to influence the wider test strategy, CI/CD pipeline, test environments and approach to areas such as vulnerability scanning as the platform continues to evolve.

Why join?

The business has been established for around five years and is approaching 20 people, with hiring being driven by growth rather than replacement.

Its technology is already being used within UK critical infrastructure, and the company is continuing to onboard customers while exploring opportunities across other regulated industries.

That creates an interesting challenge for a senior tester. The product is established and being used in environments where reliability matters, but the team is still small enough that one person can have a significant influence over how quality engineering is done.

You'll work directly with the people building the platform, have ownership rather than being buried inside a large QA function, and have the freedom to introduce better tooling, automation and ways of working.

There’s a £60,000 – £70,000 salary, alongside bonus potential and opportunities for professional development.

You'll need to be comfortable being in the office five days a week initially. There’s a genuine reason for that: the role involves working with the team's physical lab and edge devices, as well as collaborating closely with the engineers while you get up to speed.

Once you're established, there is potential for one or two days working from home, depending on the needs of the role.

If you're the type of tester who gets satisfaction from finding the failure mode before the customer does, and you'd rather build the testing strategy than simply inherit one, this could be a very good fit.