Senior QA Engineer

CDL Software; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 45,000 - 54,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days holiday, increasing with service

Health and Wellbeing programme

Pension scheme

Electric Vehicle Scheme

Career progression opportunities

Recognition and awards program

Diversity and Inclusion network

Flexible working

Job summary

A leading technology company is seeking a Senior QA Engineer to join the Insurer team. You'll be responsible for leading and enhancing testing practices on CDL's Insurer System, a cloud-based platform for insurers. Your role will involve supporting integration testing, validating complex data flows, and driving best practices in testing methodologies. The company offers a hybrid working model, a competitive salary up to £54,000, and various employee benefits including flexible working hours and a commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Qualifications

• Strong understanding of modern testing principles.
• Ability to define effective test strategies.
• Experience with automation and exploratory testing.
• Knowledge of TDD and BDD.
• Broad testing knowledge with specialism in automation.

Responsibilities

• Lead testing and automation practices in the team.
• Work with engineers to ensure quality from design stages.
• Validate complex data flows and ensure accuracy.
• Support testing of integrations and APIs.
• Drive best practices in functional and performance testing.

Skills

Test automation

CI/CD pipelines

API testing

Collaboration

Problem-solving

AWS

Data-driven testing

Tools

Karate

Cypress

Job description

Overview

Senior QA Engineer to join the Insurer team on CDL’s Insurer System (Policy Manager), a cloud-based platform used by insurers and MGAs to manage policies, risk data, and related financial processes.

Location: North West UK - Hybrid | Compensation: £45,000 - £54,000 per year

What You'll Do

• Lead and improve testing and automation practices within the Insurer team, helping deliver a high-quality platform for insurers and MGAs
• Work with software engineers and product teams to ensure quality is considered from the earliest stages of design and development
• Validate complex data flows, including policy data imports, updates, and reprocessing, ensuring accuracy and reliability
• Support testing of integrations and APIs, connecting the platform to third-party systems used across the insurance ecosystem
• Help maintain confidence in financial and accounting-related features, including premium data, reporting, and audit trails
• Drive best practice across functional, performance, and security testing in a cloud-hosted environment
• Improve test automation coverage and reliability, contributing to CI/CD pipelines and fast feedback for teams
• Coach and mentor others, helping build strong quality and testing practices across the team
• Continuously look for ways to improve tooling, processes, and how quality is approached day-to-day
• Encourage pragmatic thinking, innovation, and high standards while keeping delivery focused and practical

What You'll Bring

• A strong understanding of modern testing principles and how they apply across cross-functional delivery teams
• The ability to define and apply effective test strategies for complex, data-driven systems, balancing automation, exploratory testing, and risk-based approaches
• Experience promoting a shift-left approach to quality, embedding good testing and quality practices early in the development lifecycle
• Confidence investigating issues across environments, using logs, metrics, and data to understand failures and support root-cause analysis
• A mindset of continuous improvement, actively contributing to better testing practices, standards, and tooling through collaboration and knowledge sharing
• A solid working knowledge of TDD and BDD, and when to apply them effectively
• A collaborative, pragmatic approach, working closely with Product and Engineering to deliver shared outcomes
• Broad testing knowledge with a strong specialism in test automation
• Hands-on experience with modern automated testing tools such as Karate and Cypress, applied thoughtfully across the test pyramid
• Familiarity with a range of testing and delivery tools across the SDLC, including API testing and documentation, exploratory testing, performance testing, and work tracking
• Experience working with CI/CD pipelines, contributing to and maintaining automated quality checks within modern delivery workflows, such as GitLab
• Comfort working within AWS-hosted, cloud-based systems, supporting effective testing and quality assurance across distributed services
• A proven ability to take improvement ideas from concept through to delivery
• Practical experience using AI-enabled tooling or techniques within the delivery lifecycle to improve testing efficiency, coverage, or insight
• Curiosity and openness to emerging AI-assisted testing approaches, with a focus on real-world, practical application

Desirable Extras

• Knowledge of accessibility standards and practices (e.g. WCAG), with the ability to consider accessibility as part of broader testing strategies
• Experience designing and executing test approaches across both web and desktop applications, ensuring consistent quality and usability
• Exposure to AI-powered testing tools
• Confidence querying relational databases (e.g. Postgres) using SQL to support testing, debugging, and root-cause analysis
• Experience with performance and security testing
• Previous experience working in or alongside the insurance or financial services domain

Benefits

The salary for the role of Senior QA Engineer pays up to £54,000 per year, with progression through CDL’s career framework. Your growth and advancement within CDL are tied to ambition and effort.

• Hybrid Working (2 Days a Week in the office)
• Truly flexible working
• 25 days holiday to start, increasing by 1 day per year of service up to 30 days
• Top employer for 10th year running
• Excellent training and development platform
• Opportunities for career progression
• Health and Wellbeing programme
• Virtual activities, lunch and learns, and meetups
• Life and health assurance
• Electric Vehicle Scheme
• Recognitions and awards program
• Parental benefits
• Diversity and Inclusion network
• Pension scheme
• Community projects and volunteer days
• Refer a friend bonus

Diversity and Inclusion

CDL recognises that building a diverse workforce is critical to the success of our business. We strongly encourage applications from a diverse talent pool and welcome the opportunity to discuss flexibility requirements and workplace adjustments with all applicants.