Quality Engineer Lead

First Central Services; Manchester, Haywards Heath; Hybrid; GBP 73,000 - 93,000; Full time

Job summary

First Central Services seeks a Quality Engineering Lead for its Manchester office, responsible for leading quality engineers and championing quality practices throughout the organization. This pivotal role involves developing test strategies, mentoring engineers, and ensuring consistent quality in software delivery in a dynamic, cloud-based environment. With a focus on teamwork and innovation, the successful candidate will enjoy a supportive and flexible work environment.

Benefits

Simply Health Cash plan

Flexible Bank Holidays

Electric Car Scheme

Flexible Working

Your Time in Need

Qualifications

• Experience in leadership of quality engineering in agile teams.
• Strong understanding of cloud platforms and application testing.
• Extensive experience in quality assurance with at least 3 years in a lead role.

Responsibilities

• Manage and mentor quality engineers across teams.
• Drive adoption of quality best practices focusing on automation.
• Develop test automation strategies integrated into CI/CD pipelines.

Skills

Quality Engineering leadership

BDD Implementation

CI/CD Integration

Cloud Platforms & testing

Performance testing

Security testing

End to End Testing Strategy

Test Management tools

Root Cause analysis

Problem solving

Education

Relevant certifications preferred (e.g., ISTQB, Certified Agile Tester, BDD Practitioner)

Tools

Selenium

Cucumber

Jenkins

Azure DevOps

Job description

Location: Guernsey, Haywards Heath, Home Office (Remote) or Manchester Salary: £73,652 - £92,065 - depending on experience Department: Technology and Data

We’re 1st Central, a market-leading insurance company utilising smart data and technology at pace. Rapid growth has been based on giving our 1.4 million customers exactly what they want: great value insurance with an excellent service. And that’s the same for our colleagues too; we won Insurance Employer of the Year at the British Insurance Awards 2024 and our Glassdoor score is pretty mega too!

We’re looking for a Quality Engineering Lead who’ll play a pivotal role in leading and enabling quality engineers who are embedded within our cross functional value stream teams. This role is responsible for championing and embedding a culture of quality across federated value stream teams.

O perat ing in a dynamic, cloud-based environment, you’ll l ead the design and implementation of the Focus quality strategy and will b e responsible for quality engineering practices and standards that emphasise automation, continuous testing and shift left principles.

We value flexible working arrangements, so you can choose to work remotely or maybe you live within a commutable distance from one of our offices in Salford Quays, Manchester, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, or Guernsey , and want to work in the office occasionally.

Core skills were looking for to succeed in the role:

Quality Engineering leadership

BDD Implementation

CI/CD Integration

Cloud Platforms & testing in cloud native and microservices environment

Performance testing & tooling

Security testing & tooling

End to End Testing Strategy (design & implementation across API, UI & backend)

Test Management tools

Test Data and Environment management

Root Cause analysis & defect management and reporting

Identification and management of risk

Problem solving skills, with the ability to adopt a logical approach

Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

What’s involved:

You’ll manage, mentor and support a group of quality engineers distributed across multiple cross functional teams, ensuring alignment with career development, performance goals and organisational standards

You’ll drive the adoption of quality best practice, focusing on automation and BDD to ensure alignment with business outcomes and user stories

You’ll develop and implement test automation strategies that integrate into CI/CD pipelines, and ensure efficient and easily maintainable framework

You’ll champion quality engineering best practice including CI/CD, automated testing, infrastructure as code, observability and secure coding standards within a DevOps culture

You’ll define and implement a robust end to end testing strategy that includes functional performance, and security testing to ensure high-quality resilient, and secure software delivery across all value streams

You’ll work with cross functional teams to define testing requirements, lead BDD sessions and ensure test scenarios reflect business needs

You'll define and monitor key quality metrics, providing reports to assess the platforms quality and track improvement progress

You’ll design and implement a defect management process

You’ll collaborate closely with Principal Engineers, Software Engineers, Product Owners, Architects, RTEs and delivery leads to ensure is aligned with business goals and technology, including AI powered solutions to optimise coding, testing, deployment, monitoring and support

You’ll build and maintain strong relationships with external and internal technology partners, ensuring effective collaboration, alignment with engineering standards, and value delivery from third party services or vendor engagements

You'll drive the recruitment, onboarding and continuous deployment of quality engineers, ensuring a strong pipeline of talent and future leaders

You’ll establish and maintain quality governance frameworks and controls balancing autonomy with consistency across the federated engineering teams

You'll promote a culture of leadership, feedback and experimentation support teams to continuously refine their ways of working

You’ll support the 24/7 on-call rota to manage incidents as required

You’ll support the Focus application out of hour releases when required

You’ll comply with the requirements, and act in accordance with, the Group Code of Conduct and Fitness and Propriety policies at all times

You’ll ensure compliance with Company Policies, Values and guidelines and other relevant standards/ regulations at all times

Experience & knowledge

Experience of leadership of quality engineering efforts in agile, cross-functional software development teams

Strong understanding of cloud platforms and cloud native application testing

Significant experience in test automation frameworks and tooling (e.g. Selenium, Playwright Junit, TestNG)

Hands on experience with BDD tools (e.g Cucumber) and Gherkin syntax

Experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pieplines (e.g Jenkins, GitLab, Azure DevOps)

Solid knowledge of performance testing tools (e.g Jmeter, Gatling) and strategies

Familiarity with secure testing principles and tools (OWASP, ZAP, SAST/DAST Tools)

Experience of End-to-End testing strategy design and implementation

Strong understanding of quality metrics and KPIIs to assess and drive continuous improvement

Experience of facilitating BDD workshops and collaborating with key business and technical change stakeholders

Strong working knowledge of agile and DevOps practices including shift left testing and continuous testing

Proficient with test data management, environment configuration and visualisation techniques

Experience of aligning testing efforts with business value delivery

Ideally an Insurance or financial Services background, although other backgrounds will be considered

Knowledge of FCA requirements (including TCF)

Extensive experience in Quality Assurance/Quality Engineering with at least 3 years in a lead role

Skills

Quality Engineering leadership

BDD Implementation

CI/CD Integration

Cloud Platforms & testing in cloud native and microservices environment

Performance testing & tooling

Security testing & tooling

End to End Testing Strategy (design & implementation across API, UI & backend)

Test Management tools

Test Data and Environment management

Root Cause analysis & defect management and reporting

Identification and management of risk

Problem solving skills, with the ability to adopt a logical approach

Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

Qualifications

Relevant certifications preferred (e.g., ISTQB, Certified Agile Tester, BDD Practitioner, AWS Cloud Practitioner)

Behaviours

Acts as a mentor, leading by example to continuously embed a quality first culture across product teams

Commercially focussed and results driven taking a pragmatic approach to delivering value

Self-motivated and enthusiastic

An organised and pro-active approach

Ability to work on own initiative and as part of a team

A flexible approach and positive attitude

Emphasis on attention to detail and accuracy

Takes initiative to make decisions

Strives to drive business improvements to contribute to the success of the business

So, if you’re up for the challenge and would like to join our vibrant and busy team, we want to hear from you today.

What can we do for you?

People first. Always. We’re passionate about our colleagues and know the best people deserve an extraordinary working environment. We owe it to them so that’s what we offer. Our workplaces are energetic, inspirational, supportive. To get a taste of the advantages you’ll enjoy, take a look at all our perks in full here .

Intrigued? Our Talent team can tell you everything you need to know about what we want and what we’re offering, so feel free to get in touch.

86% of people would recommend a friend to work at First Central

Simply Health Cash plan. Reclaim the cost of your eye tests, dental appts, physiotherapy and more

Flexible Bank Holidays

Eight flexible bank holidays; you can choose which festivals you observe

We’re passionate about it. Everyone gets a paid day off annually to volunteer

Electric Car Scheme

Plug into our Electric Car Scheme for a deal with insurance, road tax and servicing

Flexible Working

We’re flexible; most roles let you mix office and home working. We work fluidly around core hours

Your Time in Need

Your Time in Need: five days’ leave so you can deal with life stuff. We’ll support you