Lead Quality Engineer

Aberdeen Standard Investments; City of Edinburgh; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading investment company in the UK seeks a Lead Quality Engineer to develop and implement automation strategies. You will manage quality engineers, define coding standards, and ensure the delivery of reliable software. Candidates should have strong engineering skills in JavaScript or Python, alongside experience in performance testing. This position includes an attractive benefits package and a flexible working environment.

Benefits

40 days annual leave

16% employer pension contribution

Discretionary performance-based bonus

Private healthcare

Gym discounts and season ticket loans

Qualifications

• Proven at setting automation strategies for multi-team programmes.
• Experience balancing velocity, risk, and compliance.
• Strong communicator across technical and non-technical audiences.

Responsibilities

• Define and govern coding standards and test design patterns.
• Embed shift-left quality and CI/CD-driven quality gates.
• Train and develop automation engineers.

Skills

Strong engineering skills in JavaScript/TypeScript or Python, Java or C#

Deep experience designing maintainable frameworks (Playwright/Cypress/Selenium, REST Assured/Pact)

Confident with Git and build pipelines

Practical experience with performance testing (k6, JMeter)

Line management and coaching

Education

ISTQB Advanced Test Automation Engineer or equivalent experience

Tools

GitHub Actions

Azure DevOps

Docker

Kubernetes

Azure/AWS/GCP

Job description

Overview

At Aberdeen, our ambition is to be the UK’s leading Wealth & Investments group.

Strengthening talent and culture is one of our strategic priorities. We strive to make Aberdeen a great place to work so that we can attract and retain the industry’s best talent.

Our people put our stakeholders at the heart of everything they do by helping us to make a positive difference to the lives of our clients, customers, colleagues, shareholders and society.

We are focused on growing our direct and advised wealth platforms and repositioning our specialist asset management business to meet client demand. We are committed to providing excellent client service, supported by leading technology and talent.

About the department

At Aberdeen Adviser, we are building a modern, scalable technology platform that empowers financial advisers to serve their clients more efficiently. Our engineering teams work in cross-functional squads to develop innovative, high-quality software solutions that make a real impact. We foster a culture of collaboration, experimentation, and continuous learning, where every engineer can shape the future of our platform.

About the Role

We’re creating a modern, automation‑first test function. As Lead Quality Engineer you’ll operate in a Principal/Developer‑in‑Test capacity, setting automation strategy and standards across product squads and large programmes. You’ll line‑manage a combination of quality engineers and coaches, coach engineers across disciplines, and partner with fellow Test Leads to raise the bar for quality at speed. Your mission: build the systems, practices and people that make reliable software delivery the default.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and govern coding standards, test design patterns, and automation architecture (UI, API, contract, component, and integration layers). Select and evolve toolchains that fit our stack and delivery model.
• Embed shift‑left quality, risk‑based testing, and CI/CD‑driven quality gates (including static analysis, unit coverage thresholds, contract verification, performance smoke). Establish reliable test data and environments practices.
• Grow capability through 1:1s, pairing, code reviews, clinics, and communities of practice. Develop learning roadmaps for automation engineers and side‑skill with the other Test Lead to cross‑pollinate practices across chapters.
• Objectives, performance, progression frameworks, hiring/assessment, and wellbeing for the automation team.
• Work across multiple squads/initiatives, shaping test strategies, assuring delivery plans, unblocking teams, and communicating risks and trade‑offs to senior stakeholders.
• Champion performance, reliability and accessibility testing; integrate checks into pipelines and partner with SRE/Platform/Security to automate NFR evidence.
• Define leading/lagging indicators (e.g., change fail rate, MTTD/MTTR, flake rate, escape rate), run experiments, and iterate on tooling and process based on data.

About the candidate

• Strong engineering skills in one or more of JavaScript/TypeScript or Python, Java or C#; deep experience designing maintainable frameworks (e.g., Playwright/Cypress/Selenium, REST Assured/Pact for API & contract testing).
• Confident with Git, trunk‑based development, and build pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, Jenkins). Familiar with containerisation (Docker/Kubernetes) and cloud (Azure/AWS/GCP) in service of test execution at scale.
• Proven at setting automation strategies for multi‑team programmes; influencing engineering leaders; balancing velocity, risk and compliance.
• Practical experience with performance testing (e.g., k6, JMeter) and integrating results into release decisions.
• Track record of line management (hiring, performance, growth) and coaching developers and testers alike; strong communicator across technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Nice to have - ISTQB Advanced Test Automation Engineer or equivalent experience; exposure to contract‑testing at scale, service virtualisation, IaC (Terraform), and quality in data/ML pipelines.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Committed employer. If you have a disability and would like to apply to one of our UK roles under the Disability Confident Scheme, please notify us by completing the relevant section in our candidate questionnaire. One of our team will reach out to support you through your application process.

Our benefits

There's more to working life than coming home with a good salary. We have an environment where you can learn, get involved and be supported.

When you join us, your reward will be one of the best around. This includes 40 days’ annual leave, a 16% employer pension contribution, a discretionary performance-based bonus (where applicable), private healthcare and a range of flexible benefits – including gym discounts, season ticket loans and access to an employee discount portal. You can read more about our benefits here.

Our business

Enabling our clients to be better investors drives everything we do. Our business is structured around three distinct areas – our vectors of growth – focused on our clients’ changing needs. You can find out more about what we do here.

An inclusive way of working

Whatever way you like to work, if you have the talent and commitment to join our team, we’d like to hear from you.

At Aberdeen we’ve adopted a ‘blended working’ approach. This approach combines the benefits of face-to-face collaboration, coaching and connecting in our offices with the flexibility of working from home. It enables colleagues to find a balance that works for their roles, their teams, our clients and our business.

An inclusive culture, where diverse perspectives drive our actions, is at the core of who we are and what we do. If you need assistance with your application, or a reasonable adjustment to your interview arrangements – for example, because you are neurodivergent, or have a physical, sensory, cognitive, mental, visible or invisible disability – please let us know and we’ll be happy to help.

We’re committed to providing an inclusive workplace where all forms of difference are valued and which is free from any form of unfair or unlawful treatment. We define diversity in its broadest sense – this includes but is not limited to our diversity of educational and professional backgrounds, experience, cognitive and neurodiversity, age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, religion or belief and ethnicity and geographical provenance. We support a culture that values meritocracy, fairness and transparency and welcomes enquiries from everyone. If you need assistance or an adjustment due to a disability please let us know as part of your application and we will assist.