Senior Software Tester

DLK Group; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,300,000; Full time

Job summary

Cape Town, South Africa — The Western Cape Department of Health seeks a Senior/Lead Automation Tester for the Provincial Health Data Centre (PHDC). You will own testing deliverables, lead a motivated team, and ensure high-quality outcomes across all testing initiatives.

You will design test strategies, build scalable Playwright-based automation, and coordinate with developers in an Agile/DevOps environment. Mentorship of junior testers and strong data validation skills are essential.

Qualifications

• 5 to 7+ years of professional software testing experience with manual and automated testing.
• Tertiary qualifications and/or applicable training in software testing or programming.
• Experience with MS SQL Server and databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL) including stored procedures.
• Strong Agile/Scrum and DevOps delivery experience.
• Good written and verbal communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead Test Strategy & Planning in collaboration with stakeholders.
• Lead Test Automation and maintain scalable frameworks (Playwright).
• Execute functional, integration, regression, and API tests; track defects in Jira/Azure DevOps.
• Lead the testing effort, introduce and adopt processes.
• Streamline workflows and coordinate with the software team.
• Validate environment, data, and CI/CD pipelines; ensure data integrity.
• Mentor junior testers and drive continuous quality improvement.

Skills

Test automation

SQL

Jira

Azure DevOps

Playwright

Agile/Scrum

DevOps

Mentorship

Education

International Software Testing Qualifications

Tertiary qualifications in IT

Tools

Playwright

MS SQL Server

PostgreSQL

MySQL

Jira

Azure DevOps

Job description

Cape Town, South Africa | Posted on 07/08/2026

The Western Cape Department of Health is looking for a highly skilled Senior / Lead Automation Tester to join a highly motivated engineering team at the Provincial Health Data Centre (PHDC). This role requires an experienced professional who is both technically hands‑on and capable of leading, coordinating, and mentoring junior testers.

The successful person will take full ownership of their deliverables as well as the team’s output, ensuring a high standard of quality across all testing initiatives.

Core Responsibilities

• Lead Test Strategy & Planning: Collaborate with stakeholders to define testing scopes, objectives, and robust test strategies.
  
• Lead Test Automation: Design, build, and maintain scalable automated testing frameworks (using Playwright).
  
• Execution & Defect Tracking: Perform functional, integration, regression, and API testing. Log, track, and reproduce defects using tools like Jira or Azure DevOps.
  
• Required to lead the Testing effort. Skill to
  
• Introduce and adopt processes
  
• Streamline work
  
• Coordinate work with the software team
  
• Environment & Data Validation: Work with databases and CI/CD pipelines to validate backend data integrity and support continuous deployment.
  
• Mentorship: Guide junior testers, review test scripts, and drive continuous quality improvement across the team.
  

Requirements

Requirements & Experience

• Experience: 5 to 7+ years of professional software testing experience, often with a mix of manual and automated testing.
  
• Technical Skills and Certifications: Tertiary qualifications and/or applicable training in application programming courses and/or International Software Testing Qualifications.
  
• Experience with MS SQL Server and data access methods, SQL, and extensive work done on Database Technologies (MS SQL, PostgreSQL, MySQL) – including familiarity with Stored Procedures.
  
• Methodologies: Strong experience working within Agile/Scrum and DevOps delivery cycles.
  
• Good written and verbal communication skills
  

The Team

• The current team is made up of experienced software developers, analysts, data scientists and database engineers who operate in an agile environment, implementing continuous automation, integrated unit testing and agile processes.