Software Engineer in Test

Ocho; Belfast City District; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work pattern

Job summary

Ocho in Belfast is seeking a Senior C#/.NET Test Architect with hands-on coding background to review designs and raise testability concerns.

You will work within NUnit, SpecFlow and internal frameworks to ensure quality across established development teams, reading code directly and challenging implementation choices while staying aligned with existing testing patterns. Hybrid role: 2 days in Belfast, 3 days remote.

Qualifications

• A genuine development background as a C#/.NET engineer turned tester.
• Senior-level ability to read and critique C#/.NET code for design/testability issues.
• Strong QA/testing expertise across unit, component and acceptance testing.
• Confidence to challenge developers directly with technical reasoning.

Responsibilities

• Review C#/.NET code directly to assess design quality and testability.
• Challenge developers on implementation choices that create testability or quality risks.
• Protect quality standards across development teams throughout the development lifecycle.
• Work within established testing frameworks, including NUnit, SpecFlow, unit, component and acceptance testing.
• Identify gaps between the existing testing strategy and what development teams are actually producing.
• Keep development teams aligned with the established testing approach.
• Provide burst testing capacity without relying on existing senior team members.
• Operate independently once ramped up, reducing the load on the wider team.

Skills

C#/.NET development

Code review

QA/testing

Challenge developers

Testing framework familiarity

Tools

NUnit

SpecFlow

Job description

• 12-month contract, hybrid: 2 days a week in Belfast, 3 days remote
• Rare hybrid role combining senior C#/.NET engineering depth with test architecture authority
• Protect quality across established development teams, working within existing testing frameworks
• Genuine technical authority, able to challenge developers directly on code, design and testability

About the Company

A well-established Belfast technology team is completing its testing capability as part of a longer-term investment in software quality. Three of four planned specialist roles in this area are already in place, backed by established testing frameworks and processes, and the team is now looking for the right person to complete the group.

The Role

This isn't a conventional Test Architect role focused purely on strategy, process and automation. You'll need enough hands-on C#/.NET development knowledge to read code directly, understand how it's been designed and challenge developers where the implementation creates testability or quality issues. The testing environment (NUnit, SpecFlow, unit, component, acceptance and user acceptance testing, and internal proprietary frameworks) is already established, so this isn't a build-from-scratch role. Instead, you'll ensure development teams stay aligned with what's already in place, spot gaps in what's being delivered, and provide additional capacity without existing senior team members having to pick up the slack. It suits someone with a genuine development background before moving into testing, comfortable saying "this isn't testable, and here's why" with the technical grounding to back it up.

Key Responsibilities

• Review C#/.NET code directly to assess design quality and testability
• Challenge developers on implementation choices that create testability or quality risks
• Protect quality standards across development teams throughout the development lifecycle
• Work within established testing frameworks, including NUnit, SpecFlow, unit, component and acceptance testing
• Identify gaps between the existing testing strategy and what development teams are actually producing
• Keep development teams aligned with the established testing approach
• Provide burst testing capacity without relying on existing senior team members
• Operate independently once ramped up, reducing the load on the wider team

What You'll Need

• A genuine development background as a C#/.NET Software Engineer before moving into testing (a Software Engineer in Test / SDET career path)
• Senior-level experience able to read and critique C#/.NET code for design and testability issues
• Strong QA/testing expertise, including unit, component and acceptance testing
• Confidence to challenge developers directly and explain the technical reasoning behind it
• Comfortable working within an existing testing framework rather than building one from scratch
• Able to work 2 days a week from Belfast, with the remaining 3 days remote

Desirable / Nice to Have:

• Direct experience with NUnit and SpecFlow
• Experience operating in a burst-capacity or short-term contractor role within an established team

Why Apply?

• Hybrid pattern: 2 days a week in Belfast, 3 days remote
• Genuine technical authority, not just process ownership... real influence over what gets shipped
• Step into established frameworks and processes rather than starting from zero
• Join a team that's already three-quarters staffed, working alongside people who know the environment well