Senior QA Engineer (F8FF83B)

Referment; West of England; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

Referment is partnering with a financial services technology company to build cloud-native reconciliation and payments platforms. This role is hands-on, automation-focused, and you will own automated test suites across APIs, services and a React front end, integrating them into CI/CD for fast feedback.

You will lead test frameworks, drive performance and load testing, review code for quality, mentor engineers, and ensure security and data privacy with PCI and ISO 27001 considerations.

Qualifications

• Significant commercial experience as QA, test automation or SDET.
• Strong programming skills for test automation in Kotlin, Java or TypeScript.
• Hands-on API and UI automation with Cypress or Playwright.
• Experience testing Spring Boot microservices with JUnit/Testcontainers.
• Performance and load testing with Gatling, k6 or JMeter.
• CI/CD integration and testing on Docker, Kubernetes and AWS.
• Good SQL skills, ideally PostgreSQL.
• Confidence using AI-assisted testing tools.
• Knowledge of test pyramid, BDD/TDD and Agile/Lean.
• Excellent communication of risk/quality to tech and non-tech audiences.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and own automated test suites across APIs, services and front end.
• Integrate tests into CI/CD for fast feedback.
• Own test automation frameworks and tooling; lead performance/load testing.
• Review PRs with a quality lens; promote AI testing tools.
• Coach engineers on quality; participate in Agile ceremonies.
• Consider security and data privacy; align with PCI/ISO27001.
• Support releases and triage customer-reported issues.
• Conduct targeted exploratory testing on high-risk changes.

Skills

QA Engineer

SDET

Automation ownership

Agile testing

API automation

Tools

Cypress

Playwright

JUnit

Testcontainers

Gatling

k6

JMeter

Docker

Kubernetes

AWS

PostgreSQL

Job description

Referment is working with a financial services technology company whose development teams build and maintain financial reconciliation and payments platforms. Its products are cloud-native and multi-tenant, and this role is central to how quality is built into them.

The Role

You'll join an interdisciplinary team of engineers, a product manager and an architect, getting involved from kickoff in designing and scoping features, identifying risk early and shaping acceptance criteria and BDD scenarios. This is a hands-on, automation-focused role: you'll design, build and own automated test suites across APIs, services and a React front end, integrating them into CI/CD pipelines so every change gets fast, reliable feedback.

You'll own the team's test automation frameworks and tooling, keeping tests fast, stable and maintainable, and you'll lead performance, load and scalability testing, defining realistic scenarios and working with engineers to resolve bottlenecks. You'll review pull requests with a quality lens, champion AI tools in testing, and evolve the team's test strategy and quality metrics. You'll also coach and mentor engineers so quality is owned by the whole team, take part in Agile ceremonies, and consider security and data privacy in all testing, with due concern for standards such as PCI and ISO 27001. You'll support releases, triage customer-reported issues with support colleagues, and carry out targeted exploratory testing of high-risk changes.

What We're Looking For

• Significant commercial experience as a QA, test automation or SDET engineer, including owning test automation for a product or team.
• Strong programming skills for test automation in Kotlin, Java or TypeScript, with confidence reading production code.
• Hands-on API and UI automation using modern tools such as Cypress or Playwright.
• Experience testing Spring Boot microservices, including integration and contract testing with tools such as JUnit and Testcontainers.
• Proven performance and load testing with tools such as Gatling, k6 or JMeter, and analysis using monitoring and observability tools.
• Integrating automated tests into CI/CD and testing applications on Docker, Kubernetes and AWS.
• Good SQL skills, ideally PostgreSQL.
• Confidence using AI-assisted tools day to day, with an interest in applying them to testing.
• A solid understanding of the test pyramid, BDD and TDD, and of Agile and Lean practices.
• Excellent communication, able to explain risk and quality trade-offs to technical and non-technical audiences.

Desirable

• Experience testing complex financial systems such as reconciliation, payments or data integrity.

This could suit a senior QA or SDET engineer from a cloud-native product environment who wants deep automation ownership, or an engineer who has moved into quality and enjoys shaping how a team tests.