Lead Test Engineer / Principal SDET

Inside IR35

£640/day max (Umbrella, dependent on experience)

12-month contract

SC Clearance required

Locations: Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle (60% hybrid)

(No London-based candidates)

Overview

We are seeking an experienced Lead Test Engineer / Principal SDET to support a major digital transformation programme within a large government environment.

You will play a key role in shaping and embedding a scalable, automation-first test strategy across multiple engineering teams, supporting the transition from monolithic systems to a modern microservices-based architecture.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role, combining strategic influence with active contribution to automation frameworks and engineering practices.

Key Responsibilities

Test Strategy & Leadership

• Define and implement an end-to-end test strategy aligned to microservices architecture
• Establish testing standards, patterns, and best practices across multiple teams
• Assess existing testing approaches and drive continuous improvement
• Embed scalable testing frameworks and reusable solutions across engineering teams

Hands-on Engineering

• Design, build, and maintain robust automated test frameworks
• Deliver testing across all levels: unit, integration, contract, system, and end-to-end
• Lead automation efforts within Java-based environments
• Actively contribute to code and framework development, not just governance

Collaboration & Governance

• Work closely with engineering teams and stakeholders to ensure alignment on quality
• Provide technical leadership, mentoring, and coaching to engineers and testers
• Promote consistent application of testing practices across delivery teams
• Maintain visibility of quality metrics and delivery outcomes

Essential Skills & Experience

Technical Expertise

• Strong experience defining and implementing test strategies in microservices environments
• Hands-on automation experience using:
• Java, Selenium, Rest Assured
• Strong experience in API, integration, and contract testing
• Experience working across both monolithic and distributed systems
• Solid understanding of:
• CI/CD pipelines
• Spring Boot-based applications
• Kafka or similar event-driven messaging systems

Modern Testing Practices

• Experience with contract testing (e.g. Pact, Spring Cloud Contract)
• Strong API testing and service-level testing experience
• Awareness of non-functional testing (performance, accessibility)
• Experience with NoSQL databases such as MongoDB
• Ability to build scalable, maintainable, reusable automation frameworks

Leadership

• Experience operating at Lead or Principal SDET level
• Ability to influence across teams without direct authority
• Strong communication skills across technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Proven ability to drive engineering quality in complex environments

Desirable Skills

• AWS experience
• Playwright / Serenity BDD
• Performance testing tools (Gatling, K6)
• Observability tools (Grafana, Prometheus, Splunk)
• Docker and modern DevOps practices

Tools & Technologies

• AWS
• Java, Selenium, Rest Assured
• Serenity BDD / Playwright
• Pactflow / Spring Cloud Contract
• Kafka
• MongoDB
• Jenkins / GitHub / GitLab
• Docker
• Gatling / K6
• Grafana / Prometheus / Splunk

About You

You are a hands-on technical leader who can define direction while actively contributing to delivery. You thrive in complex, multi-team environments and are passionate about building scalable, reliable, automation-first testing solutions.

You are equally comfortable writing automation code as you are shaping strategy and influencing senior stakeholders.