Mid-Level QA Engineer (Manual & Automation)

Pinewood.AI; Metropolitan Borough of Solihull; Hybrid; GBP 42,000 - 62,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days holiday

Life assurance (4x)

Enhanced family-friendly leave

EAP 24/7

Cycle to Work

Eyecare vouchers

Job summary

Pinewood.AI is seeking a technically strong QA Engineer to own and deliver our quality strategy for the Automotive Intelligence Platform. You will collaborate with engineering and product teams to ensure features are fit for purpose, reliable, and releasable, while contributing to continuous improvement of QA approaches.

This role sits embedded in a Development team and operates in a hybrid model with ~2 days onsite at Solihull Blythe Valley.

Qualifications

• Strong manual testing experience in Agile environments.
• Experience with automation tools/frameworks (Playwright, Cypress, Selenium).
• Solid understanding of testing principles and techniques.
• Experience with defect tracking tools (Jira, Azure DevOps).
• API testing basics (Postman).
• Basic SQL or equivalent for data validation.
• Familiarity with Git is a plus.
• Thinks like a user and focuses on risk and impact.

Responsibilities

• Own manual testing for assigned features from refinement to release.
• Design and execute meaningful test scenarios beyond scripted cases.
• Perform functional, regression, exploratory, and integration testing.
• Validate requirements and acceptance criteria.
• Identify risk, edge cases, and user-impacting defects early.
• Provide go/no-go quality assessments for releases.
• Raise clear defects with strong reproduction steps.
• Assess severity, priority, and customer impact.
• Work with developers on root-cause analysis.
• Retest fixes thoroughly and verify acceptance.
• Engage in backlog refinement, planning, and retros.
• Challenge unclear requirements constructively.
• Communicate quality status, risks, and confidence clearly.
• Contribute ideas to improve QA practices.
• Support regression and release testing activities.
• Work in a hybrid model with approx. 2 days onsite at Solihull Blythe Valley.

Skills

Manual testing

Automation tooling

Agile testing

Defect tracking

SQL basics

Git familiarity

User-focused testing

Tools

Playwright

Cypress

Selenium

Jira

Azure DevOps

Job description

Pinewood.AI is seeking a technically strong, hands-on QA Engineer to own and deliver our quality strategy for our Automotive Intelligence Platform.

We are seeking a QA Engineer with a strong manual testing mindset who has some experience with automation testing and takes ownership of product quality and user experience. This role focuses on thoughtful, risk-based testing, clear communication, and collaboration.

You'll work closely with engineering and product teams to ensure features are fit for purpose, reliable, and releasable, while contributing to continuous improvement of our QA approach. This role would sit embedded into one of our Development teams.

Key Responsibilities:

• Own manual testing for assigned features from refinement to release
• Design and execute meaningful test scenarios, not just scripted cases
• Perform functional, regression, exploratory, and integration testing
• Validate requirements and acceptance criteria
• Identify risk, edge cases, and user-impacting defects early
• Provide clear go/no-go quality assessments for releases
• Raise clear, actionable defects with strong reproduction steps
• Assess severity, priority, and customer impact
• Work closely with developers to support root-cause analysis
• Retest fixes thoroughly and verify acceptance
• Engage actively in backlog refinement, planning, and retros
• Challenge unclear or incomplete requirements constructively
• Communicate quality status, risks, and confidence clearly
• Contribute ideas to improve QA practices and consistency
• Support regression and release testing activities
• Work in a hybrid model (approx. 2 days currently onsite at Solihull Blythe Valley)

Requirements

• Strong manual testing experience in Agile environments
• Experience with at least one automation tool or framework (e.g. Playwright, Cypress, Selenium)
• Solid understanding of testing principles and techniques
• Experience with defect tracking tools (e.g. Jira, Azure DevOps)
• API testing basics (e.g. Postman)
• Comfortable validating data (basic SQL or equivalent)
• Familiarity with version control (Git) is a plus
• Thinks like a user, not just a tester
• Focuses on risk and impact, not box-ticking
• Cares deeply about shipped quality
• Shift left experience in the development cycle
• Testing dealer management systems or automotive retail software.
• Familiarity with service scheduling, parts inventory, warranty workflows and aftersales processes.
• Experience integrating Playwright or similar tools into Microsoft tech stacks and cloud CI pipelines.
• Competitive salary based on experience
• 25 days holiday plus all UK bank holidays
• 4x life assurance
• Enhanced family-friendly leave - 5 months' full pay for maternity or adoption, plus 2 weeks' fully paid paternity/adoption leave and an extra 2 weeks to use as paid annual leave within 24 months of birth or adoption
• Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) - free, confidential 24/7 support for you and your immediate family (including counselling, legal & financial advice, and wellbeing resources)
• Ongoing training & professional development
• Cycle to Work scheme - save up to 40% on bikes and accessories through salary sacrifice
• Eyecare vouchers - free eye test and contribution towards prescription glasses

About Us:

Our story began more than 20 years ago, but right from the start, it has been rooted in the specific needs of the automotive industry. As automotive professionals as well as technologists, we wanted to build practical technology solutions that were designed around how automotive businesses work, recognising what makes them different. Pinewood.AI is an unparalleled Automotive Intelligence Platform that enables automotive retail customers and OEMs to drive growth and profitability throughout every aspect of their business.

Pinewood's cloud-based, secure end-to-end ecosystem unlocks the value of every customer. Our vision is to be the full-service technology partner that helps automotive retailers and OEMs run more efficiently and increase revenue by making better commercial and business decisions more easily.

Why Join Pinewood.AI?

This is a rare opportunity to shape the QA function in a fast-growing, innovative automotive software company. You'll work with modern tools and approaches, have a direct impact on release quality, and play a pivotal role in helping us deliver outstanding products to automotive retailers and OEMs across the globe. With a culture that values collaboration, continuous improvement, and technical excellence, Pinewood.AI is the place to make your mark.