Lead Test Engineer

• Role: Lead Test Engineer
• Location: Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle (60% hybrid / 3 days in office)
• Contract: Contract | InsideIR35 | 12 Months

Role Overview:

Seeking a hands-on technical leader to define and embed an automation-first test strategy across multiple delivery teams, supporting the transition from monolithic systems to microservices. This role combines strategic oversight with active contribution to automation frameworks and testing solutions.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define and implement end-to-end test strategies aligned with microservices architecture
• Establish testing standards, patterns, and best practices across teams
• Design, build, and maintain automated test frameworks (unit, integration, API, contract, E2E)
• Lead automation in Java-based environments and support teams hands-on
• Provide technical leadership, coaching, and governance across multiple team

Essential Skills & Experience:

• Strong experience in test strategy for microservices environments
• Hands-on automation: Java, Selenium, Rest Assured
• API, contract, integration testing, including asynchronous messaging (e.g., Kafka)
• CI/CD pipelines, Spring Boot applications, performance testing fundamentals
• Experience with non-relational databases (e.g., MongoDB)
• Leadership experience at Lead/Principal level, able to influence stakeholders

Tools & Technologies:

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