Quality Engineering Leader — Automation, AI & Strategy

Halfords Careers; Redditch; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Car allowance

Annual discretionary bonus

Pension

Life assurance

25 days annual leave + bank holidays

Enhanced family leave

Employee discounts

Job summary

Halfords is seeking a Test & Quality Lead to build a modern testing capability from the ground up. You will define strategy, standards and tooling to underpin large technology programmes and embed quality throughout delivery cycles.

You will lead governance, drive automation, and collaborate with an outsourced testing partner to raise performance and reduce risk. A hybrid model with Redditch base is included for the role.

Qualifications

• Experience leading large-scale testing and QA functions.
• Ability to manage outsourced testing partners within complex tech environments.
• Proven track record implementing test strategy, governance and release assurance.
• Experience driving automation and modern Quality Engineering practices.

Responsibilities

• Define and implement the Technology-wide Test and Quality Engineering strategy.
• Establish testing standards, governance, quality gates and best practices across projects, programmes and platforms.
• Lead the transformation towards greater automation, AI-enabled testing and modern Quality Engineering practices.
• Manage outsourced testing teams and partners, ensuring quality and value delivery.
• Assess testing landscape across applications and platforms, identifying opportunities for standardisation.
• Provide independent quality assurance and risk assessments for major releases and programmes.

Skills

Enterprise-scale testing

Quality assurance

Test automation

DevOps

Stakeholder management

Quality engineering

AI in testing

Tools

Automation tooling

Job description

Halfords is seeking a Test & Quality Lead to build a modern testing capability from the ground up. You will define strategy, standards and tooling to underpin large technology programmes and embed quality throughout delivery cycles.

You will lead governance, drive automation, and collaborate with an outsourced testing partner to raise performance and reduce risk. A hybrid model with Redditch base is included for the role.