QA Lead

Salary up to £60k

Remote with travel to Crewe once a month

Acorn by Synergie, is recruiting on behalf of our client for an experienced QA Lead to take the reins on their test automation strategy. This is a key role in an exciting technical transformation, as the business begins its move from a monolithic architecture to microservices. The successful candidate will be instrumental in ensuring product reliability, streamlining testing processes within CI/CD pipelines, and embedding quality at every stage of the engineering lifecycle. Reporting to the Head of IT, you'll work closely with cross-functional teams including Developers, DevOps, and Product to set and uphold best-in-class QA standards.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define, lead and maintain, within industry standards, the QA strategy with a strong focus on test automation across backend, frontend, and APIs.
• Design, build, and implement automated test frameworks and test suites from scratch.
• Integrate automated tests within CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions).
• Define and enforce quality gates at various stages of the deployment lifecycle.
• Mentor and guide QA engineers and developers on testing best practices.
• Ensure robust coverage for both monolithic applications and distributed microservices.
• Develop and maintain test data and test environments in coordination with DevOps, in line with PCIDSS & ISO27001 standards.
• Conduct root cause analysis of test failures and drive resolution efforts.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to define acceptance criteria and ensure testability of requirements.
• Lead testing efforts during the migration from monolith to microservices, identifying risks and ensuring consistent quality across services.
• Work closely with Product Owners, Scrum Masters, and developers to ensure timely and effective delivery of high-quality features.

Required Skills & Experience:

• 5+ years of QA experience, with at least 2 years in a QA leadership or senior automation role.
• Experience writing clean, maintainable and scalable code in Python 3.
• Proven experience with both monolithic applications and microservices architectures.
• Strong proficiency in at least one automation framework/tool (e.g., Selenium, Appium, Cypress, Playwright, RestAssured).
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD tools and workflows (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, CircleCI, GitHub Actions).
• Solid programming/scripting skills (e.g., Python, JavaScript, Java, Bash).
• Deep understanding of modern software development practices (Agile, TDD/BDD, shift-left testing).
• Experience setting up test automation frameworks and environments from scratch.
• Experience with containerised environments (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes).
• Familiarity with performance, load, or security testing is a plus.
• Experience in Functional Testing (Unit, Integration, System, Regression, Smoke, Sanity)
• Experience in Non-Functional Testing (Performance, Security, Usability, Compatibility, Accessibility)
• API Testing (Postman, SoapUI)
• E2E (End 2 End Testing)
• Acceptance Testing (UAT)
• Mobile Testing (Android/iOS)

Desirable Skills:

• Experience with service virtualization and mocking tools.
• Exposure to cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Familiarity with monitoring and observability tools related to quality assurance.
• Experience working closely with a scrum team to define, priorities and deliver high quality work at a rapid pace.
• Experience implementing and maintaining Test Management tools (e.g. Test Rail, Zephyr, Xray)
• Knowledge of QA metrics and KPIs to measure software quality and team performance
• Familiarity with mobile testing strategies and frameworks (e.g. Appium, Espresso)
• Familiarity with front end development and best practices

Acorn by Synergie acts as an employment agency for permanent recruitment.