Apprentice Software Tester

About the role:

The MHR Software Academy programme is designed to give you ownership of your career aspirations, supported by training and practical experience to help you succeed. You will be part of our People First Software team and be assigned mentor, who will support and guide you throughout your career with us. All of this is designed to complement your career development, fuel your ambition, and give depth to your training and career.

Anticipate exposure to various testing methods for our software product; rest assured; each approach will be introduced gradually. Your journey begins within our Software Academy team, starting with our manual testing strategies. You will then join one of our Product delivery teams, engaging in pair testing alongside an industry expert and participating in Agile Ceremonies to comprehend our product delivery process.

Throughout your apprenticeship, you will receive training in our tooling, encompassing the creation of Test Automation using the Playwright framework. Additionally, you will be integrated into our Service Desk department to gain insights into customer queries and issues, enhancing your understanding of our software. By the end of your time in the Academy and apprenticeship, you will have acquired comprehensive knowledge of the key aspects of becoming a Software Tester, preparing you for a successful transition into a full-time role within one of our product teams.

Expected Competencies you will have:

• Attention to detail
• Critical thinking
• Curiosity
• Quality advocate
• User-Centric approach
• A technical aptitude 

What will you learn in our Software Academy?

You will have the chance to work alongside other apprentices and graduates in our Software Academy but also working closely with industry experts to help upskill and train you in how we work. Here are some of the key areas you focus on:

• Understanding the difference between "Testing" and "Quality Assurance"
• How to use Tooling to support our testing framework
• Apply different testing strategies for example regression suites
• Apply and support a number of different testing levels
• Conform to industry standards for things like GDPR
• How to write clear and concise documentation
• Have a deep understanding of all testing categories and which ones we use 

What will your day-to-day role look like?

• You'll embark on a fully planned onboarding program designed to introduce you to MHR and our suite of products and services
• A customised training program will be tailored specifically to your skillset, employing a phased approach that progressively prepares you for integration into our product delivery teams
• Your journey will involve collaboration with the Software Academy, internal Product teams responsible for delivering customer functionality, and our in-house Service Desk team

Throughout your tenure in the Software Academy, we will emphasize key areas, including:

• Various software testing types
• Software testing levels
• Risk-based testing
• Manual and Automated testing
• Utilisation of tools supporting our processes and frameworks
• Crafting clear and concise documentation
• Understanding build processes and deployments of People First software
• Writing performant and secure code
• Opportunities for learning through attending talks, pair programming, watching tutorials, and hands-on code writing

• Communication skills
• IT skills
• Attention to detail
• Organisation skills
• Problem solving skills
• Administrative skills
• Number skills
• Analytical skills
• Logical
• Team working
• Initiative
• Non judgemental
• Patience

• 7 GCSE's including Maths and English GCSE or equivalent, grade A*-C/9-4 (or equivalent) (Essential)
• Computer Science, Maths, Science or similar A Level or equivalent, grade A - C (Essential)