Lead QA & Automation Engineer (Automation-First)

Ronald James Ltd.; Newcastle upon Tyne; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Ronald James Ltd is recruiting an experienced QA & Automation Team Lead to spearhead the transition from manual testing to an automation-first approach within our financial services technology division.

You will lead a team of QA Engineers, shape testing frameworks, embed quality into development workflows and drive continuous improvement across Agile and CI/CD pipelines while remaining hands-on with automation.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading a QA team and transforming QA functions.
• Successful track record transitioning organisations from manual to automated testing.
• Designing and maintaining automated test frameworks and standards.
• Experience defining QA strategies for complex software products.
• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a team of QA Engineers, with regular performance reviews.
• Own and evolve the QA strategy, testing standards, and release criteria.
• Define testing strategies covering functional, API, integration, end-to-end and non-functional testing.
• Embed quality into Agile development and CI/CD pipelines; stay hands-on with automation.
• Develop quality metrics and reporting; drive continuous improvement across QA practices.

Skills

QA leadership

Automation strategy

CI/CD

Agile / Scrum

Mentoring

Test automation debugging

Hands-on automation

Tools

Playwright

Selenium

Cypress

Job description

Ronald James Ltd is recruiting an experienced QA & Automation Team Lead to spearhead the transition from manual testing to an automation-first approach within our financial services technology division.

You will lead a team of QA Engineers, shape testing frameworks, embed quality into development workflows and drive continuous improvement across Agile and CI/CD pipelines while remaining hands-on with automation.