QA Tester

VIQU IT; Greater London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

VIQU IT in the United Kingdom is seeking a specialist to test large-scale Kafka streaming and batch data pipelines, collaborating with data engineers to ensure data integrity across ingestion, transformation and output.

You will design an automated regression suite to run on every release, write a test strategy from scratch, and contribute to formal documentation while operating in a small, high-standards team on a remote, national basis.

Qualifications

• Kafka experience with topics, partitions, consumer groups, offsets, replay and schema registry.
• Experience testing high-volume ETL/ELT data pipelines at scale (millions of rows per day).
• Experience writing a test strategy and assessing streaming data risk.
• Experience with REST, contract testing and schema validation.
• Experience with automated regression testing in CI.
• Comfort working with data engineers and building tooling for testing at pipeline level.
• Strong Python and SQL skills.
• Structured, evidence-led approach with defined criteria, traceability and documentation.
• Ability to work in a small team with high standards and loose boundaries.
• SC clearance or eligibility; active clearance preferred.

Responsibilities

• Test large-scale Kafka streaming and batch data pipelines (ingestion, transformation, reconciliation, output).
• Build test harnesses with data engineers to enable end-to-end system testing at scale.
• Prove correctness, completeness and integrity across very large data volumes.
• Design and build an automated regression suite to run on every release and verify accuracy, stability and response times.
• Write the test strategy for the programme from scratch.
• Prepare formal test documentation for defence factory assurance with tested criteria and milestones.
• Work hands-on as part of a small, multidisciplinary team, including engineering leadership support.

Skills

Kafka

Python

SQL

REST

CI

Test strategy

SC clearance

Tools

CI/CD

Schema registry

Job description

Salary: £? - ? per year

Requirements:

• Hands-on Kafka experience, including topics, partitions, consumer groups, offsets, replay and schema registry.
• Experience testing high-volume ETL or ELT data pipelines at scale, with millions of rows per day or more.
• Experience writing a test strategy, including identifying what to test first, assessing risk in streaming data and sequencing evidence.
• Experience with modern architecture, including REST, contract testing and schema validation.
• Experience with automated regression testing in CI, with repeatable suites that run on every release.
• Comfort working closely with data engineers and building tooling that enables testing at the pipeline level.
• Strong Python and SQL skills.
• Structured, evidence-led approach with defined criteria, traceability and thorough documentation.
• Ability to work in a small team with loose boundaries and high standards.
• SC clearance, or genuine eligibility for it; active clearance is strongly preferred on contract.

Responsibilities:

• Test large-scale Kafka streaming and batch data pipelines, including ingestion, transformation, reconciliation and output.
• Build test harnesses with data engineers to make the system testable at scale.
• Prove correctness, completeness and integrity across very large data volumes.
• Design and build an automated regression suite to run on every release and verify accuracy, stability and response times.
• Write the test strategy for the programme from scratch.
• Prepare formal test documentation for defence factory assurance, including what was tested, how, against which criteria and milestone sign-off.
• Work hands-on as part of a small, multidisciplinary team, including supporting engineering leadership.

Technologies:

• AI
• Cloud
• ETL
• Kafka
• Python
• REST
• SQL
• Security
• API
• IoT
• UX UI Design

More:

We are supporting a UK-headquartered AI company building sovereign AI capability for defence and national security. Our platform is an AI operating system built entirely in the UK for high-security, high-assurance environments, and it deploys across cloud, edge, on-premise and fully air-gapped systems. The business has been established for around a decade, recently closed a substantial Series A round and holds a significant government framework position. We are scaling engineering and delivery across the UK, and this role sits on a new twelve-person programme team from day one. The position is remote across the UK, with occasional travel to a client site if required, and the contract rate is around £550 per day, negotiable. Two contract seats are available on the programme.

last updated 38 week of 2026