Lead Automation Engineer

Zoonou; Eastbourne; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Employee ownership bonus

Enhanced parental leave

Volunteer days

Flexible working

Training budget

Electric car scheme

Cycle-to-work

Discount vouchers

Season ticket loans

35 days holiday

Job summary

Zoonou is seeking a Lead Automation Engineer to help develop and grow our automation capability across client projects. You’ll own automation solutions, shape our approach and mentor engineers to raise their skills.

You’ll work with Playwright, Cypress or Selenium, integrate into CI/CD, and collaborate with commercial and technical teams to understand client goals and deliver reliable automation that scales. Flexible working options and opportunities to influence how we work across the business.

Qualifications

• Strong experience in test automation and quality engineering with real-world impact.
• Ability to design automation strategies rather than only writing tests.
• Experience collaborating with clients and cross-functional teams to shape solutions.

Responsibilities

• Take technical ownership of automation projects from discovery to delivery.
• Design and build robust automation frameworks for web and API testing.
• Work hands-on with Playwright, Cypress and Selenium; choose the right approach per project.
• Integrate automated testing into client CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps).
• Mentor and develop other engineers; share knowledge and code reviews.

Skills

Test automation leadership

Client communication

Agile

Tools

Playwright

Cypress

Selenium

Jenkins

GitHub Actions

Azure DevOps

Job description

We’re looking for a Lead Automation Engineer to help us develop and grow Zoonou’s automation capability.

For this role in particular, you won’t be stepping into something where every decision has already been made. We have an established technical team and automation experience to build on, but there’s genuine scope for you to influence what our automation capability becomes.

You’ll take ownership of automation solutions across client projects, help shape our approach and support the engineers around you to develop their skills.

We work across different clients, sectors and technologies, so you won’t be maintaining the same test suite indefinitely. You’ll be solving different problems and working out what good automation looks like in each context. We don't have a prescribed automation stack that you'll be expected to follow. Part of the role is deciding what approach makes sense for each client, technology and problem.

You’ll be involved from the start of a project, working with our commercial and technical teams to understand what a client is trying to achieve, explore what’s possible and shape the right solution. From there, you’ll help design, build and deliver the automation itself.

You’ll work closely with our Technical Services Director, alongside our performance testing and wider technical services team.

You don’t need ‘Lead’ in your current job title to apply. We’re equally interested in experienced Senior Automation Engineers who are ready to take on greater technical leadership, client responsibility and the opportunity to help others develop.

What you'll do as our Lead Automation Engineer

You’ll help our clients get more value from automation - designing solutions that are reliable, maintainable and appropriate for the problem they’re trying to solve.

On a typical day, you might:

• Take technical ownership of automation projects, from discovery and solution design through to delivery.
• Design and build robust, maintainable automation frameworks for web and API testing.
• Work hands-on with tools such as Playwright, Cypress and Selenium, choosing the right approach for each project.
• Integrate automated testing into client CI/CD pipelines using tools like Jenkins, GitHub Actions and Azure DevOps.
• Build reusable components and tooling that help make automated testing more efficient, reliable and useful.
• Work directly with clients to understand their needs, explain technical options clearly and recommend practical solutions.
• Support our commercial team with technical discovery, scoping, estimation and proposals.
• Work alongside our performance testing specialists where automation and performance engineering overlap.
• Help other engineers through pairing, code reviews, mentoring and knowledge sharing.
• Explore emerging approaches in automation and AI-assisted testing, helping us understand where new technology can add genuine value for our clients.

As our automation capability grows, you’ll have the opportunity to influence how we develop the service - from the tools and approaches we use to how we share knowledge and build capability across the team.

The experience you'll bring

You’ll have strong experience in test automation, quality engineering or software development, with a track record of building automation that’s been used in real-world projects.

We’re not looking for someone who simply knows a particular tool. You’ll be able to understand a problem, make good technical decisions and build an approach that works for the client, their technology, and their team.

We think the following experience will set you up well for the role:

• Strong experience with one or more of Playwright, Cypress and/or Selenium
• Solid programming experience in one or more languages such as JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, Java or C#.
• Experience designing automation frameworks, not just writing individual automated tests.
• Experience with API and integration testing, ideally using REST and JSON.
• A good understanding of Git and modern CI/CD practices.
• Confidence investigating failures, diagnosing problems and improving test reliability.
• Experience working in agile software development, working with developers and other technical teams.
• The ability to work with clients or stakeholders to understand their needs and explain technical solutions clearly.
• Experience with cloud platforms, mobile automation, performance testing, security testing or AI-assisted development would be useful but isn't essential.

And the way you work

Technical expertise matters, but so does how you use it. We're looking for someone who can lead by example and enjoys sharing what they know.

You’ll be someone who:

• Is curious and enjoys getting into the details to understand how things work and why they don’t.
• Uses good judgement, choosing the right approach for the problem rather than reaching for a preferred tool.
• Is comfortable taking ownership, making decisions and seeing things through.
• Works collaboratively and can explain technical ideas clearly to clients, colleagues and people with different levels of technical knowledge.
• Enjoys helping others develop through sharing knowledge, giving constructive feedback and working through problems together.
• Keeps an eye on new tools and approaches but focuses on where they can make a genuine difference rather than using technology for technology’s sake.
• Cares about doing good work and the impact it has on our clients and the people using their products.

Your working hours and location

Hours: Monday to Friday, 09:00 - 17:30

Location: Remote, office-based or hybrid - whatever works best for you. If you’re working remotely, we’ll ask you to travel to our Eastbourne office from time-to-time for team collaboration, company events and other activities. There may also be occasions when you’ll need to travel to a client location as part of a project.

What we offer

Just a few of the things we get as part of working at Zoonou:

• Employee ownership bonus - when Zoonou does well, we all share in it. The first £3,600 of our EO bonus is tax free.
• Enhanced parental leave - we support our parents with advanced maternity and paternity cover.
• Paid volunteer days - we each get two days' paid leave to volunteer our time for causes that we personally care about.
• Celebrate your way - we can swap bank holidays to celebrate significant religious holidays such as Diwali, Eid or Passover.
• Up-to 35 days' holiday - we get 32 days holiday (including bank holidays), plus an extra day each year from years 2-5.
• Buy and sell holiday - we can buy or sell up-to 5 days of annual leave each year.
• Training and development: we each have a training budget and professional development plan that actually gets used.
• Flexible ways of working: we can work remotely, from our Eastbourne office or a mix of both.
• Funded mental health support: we know support isn’t one-size-fits-all, so we fund professional support based on what each of us needs.
• We have a range of other benefits we can take advantage of, including an electric car scheme, a cycle-to-work scheme, a tech scheme, discount vouchers and season ticket loans.

Head over to our careers page to learn more about our culture and what it's like to work at Zoonou.

Diversity, equity and inclusion

At Zoonou, we welcome applications from all sections of society. We’re dedicated to building a diverse workplace where everyone feels included, valued, and able to do their best work.

You don’t need to tick every box to apply - if you’re excited about the role and our company, we want to hear from you.