QA Automation Lead

TN United Kingdom; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 40,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job description

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Here at Travel Counsellors, our customers, communities and colleagues lie at the heart of everything that we do - and that’s what makes us special. For us, relationships come before transactions, and we are there for our customers, connecting with them on a deeply human level through the moments that matter.

We’ve been changing lives for the past 30 years as the leading travel marketplace for self-employed travel entrepreneurs, empowering over 2,000 global independent travel agents to run successful leisure and corporate travel businesses. We pride ourselves in remaining a company that truly cares and one that has never wavered from its purpose; to redefine what personal means for a travel business.

Our Travel Counsellors are supported by a team of over 400 super talented people in our Support Offices to help them create unique, inspiring and exciting experiences for their customers, whilst building lasting personal relationships that bring them back to us, time and time again.

Our unique approach within the workplace – as well as towards customers – has seen us receive numerous awards and accolades, including being named as The Best Place to Work in Travel at the 2022 TTG Travel Industry Awards, placing in the Sunday Times Best Places to Work list 2023 and 2024 (Large Company) as well as being the first travel company to be awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category!

We are currently expanding at a phenomenal rate – on the back of what is our record year in terms of revenue (over £930m) - and so are looking for outstanding individuals to join our dedicated Head Office team, to help the company continue to flourish.

Role Overview

We are looking for experienced QA Leads to join our growing technology team in Manchester, UK. Working as part of our dynamic technology function, you will directly contribute to an award-winning digital platform that supports over 2000 entrepreneurial travel businesses. We are adding the QA Lead role to provide support, guidance and to help raise the bar on quality across each of our 3 product domains/streams.

The QA Lead will play a pivotal role in ensuring the highest standards of quality and performance in our technology products. This role requires you to work across all engineering squads within one of our product streams, guiding QA Automation Engineers on design and implementation of tests, focusing on automation, and elevating our overall test and automation strategy.

You will work with the wider teams to test the reliability of our technology platform through comprehensive testing methodologies with a focus on automation. You will work closely with cross-functional teams to understand requirements, develop test strategies, and implement automated tests to validate functionality, performance, and scalability across our product portfolio.

Principal Accountabilities

• Oversee all product stream/domain testing activities during the product development lifecycle, including functional, regression, performance, and security testing
• Contribute to strategic QA direction at Travel Counsellors
• Track and report on test coverage, defect statuses, and other key quality metrics
• Lead & mentor QA Automation Engineers, fostering a culture of quality and continuous improvement
• Collaborate with product owners, developers, and other stakeholders to understand requirements and define test strategies
• Design, develop, and execute automated test scripts using common testing frameworks and tools – Selenium, SpecFlow, Pact, Gatling etc
• Experience in configuring and managing test environments, ensuring they are stable and mirror production environments closely.
• Implement and maintain automated test suites for functional testing, regression testing, and performance testing
• Identify, document, and track software defects and work closely with development teams to resolve them
• Participate in code reviews, sprint planning, and release management activities to ensure high-quality software releases
• Stay updated on emerging trends and best practices in software testing and automation
• Review automated and manual test cases and feedback to QAs around test coverage and scope
• Identify and implement process improvements to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of tests
• Work across multiple teams helping to deliver the end product to the business in an efficient way
• Assist with the testing of platform enhancements, sometimes out of ours to minimise impact to the business
• Assist with releases to live and providing support to the release manager

Required Experience

• Hands on experience in API testing (Postman, BDD using SpecFlow preferred and contract testing e.g using Pact)
• Capability to cross test on various devices including laptops and mobile devices
• Experience in Test Plan preparation, estimation, and status reporting
• Experience writing performance tests identifying areas of improvement across a platform
• Proficiency in Git for version control
• Experience in Manual testing (UAT/System/Regression)
• Working knowledge of CI/CD & Blue Green Deployments
• Experience with Dev/QA collaboration to derive Test Cases/ Scenarios
• Working knowledge of testing microservices and the different types needed including unit, integration, contract, load, stress, security, resiliency testing
• You will work well under pressure, alongside colleagues to support the business community
• Working knowledge of Cloud platforms (AWS)
• Any experience of supporting the travel industry (Desirable)

Working here at Travel Counsellors, we value the hard work and effort that our colleagues put in. Because of this, you can expect a wide range of employee benefits including:

• A competitive basic salary + annual company bonus
• Flexible hybrid working model (2 days home, 3 days office)
• Career development and promotional opportunities
• 25 days holidays (increasing to 28 after 5 years of service)
• A Moments That Matter day (annually)
• Enhanced Maternity / Paternity pay
• Holiday buy and sell (up to 5 days per year)
• 3 paid days charity leave
• Company events, socials, and incentives
• 3x annual salary death in service benefit
• Company Pension scheme
• Salary sacrifice, company car scheme
• Cycle to Work Scheme
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Free breakfast, fruit, and hot/cold beverages
• Private Medical Insurance (taxable benefit) or Healthcare Cash Plan (costs incurred by employees)