Senior Software Tester

Sabenza IT & Recruitment; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 600,000 - 800,000; Full time

Job summary

Sabenza IT & Recruitment in Cape Town seeks an experienced Senior Software Tester to lead testing initiatives in a dynamic engineering team. This hands-on role involves quality assurance, mentoring junior staff, and driving automation in testing processes.

The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in both manual and automated testing, leading testing teams, and a strong background in various testing methodologies and tools. This position fosters professional development and high standards in software delivery.

Qualifications

• 5–7+ years' experience in software testing.
• Experience in both manual and automated testing.
• Experience leading testing teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead the planning and execution of testing strategies.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to define testing objectives.
• Design and maintain automated testing frameworks.
• Perform functional, integration, and regression testing.
• Mentor junior testers and drive quality standards.

Skills

API testing

Functional testing

Regression testing

Integration testing

Manual testing

Automated testing

Jira

Azure DevOps

SQL

Playwright

Education

Computer Science degree or equivalent

ISTQB or equivalent certification

Job description

Cape Town, South Africa | Posted on 29/06/2026

We are seeking an experienced and technically proficient Senior Software Tester to join a highly motivated engineering team. This is a hands-on technical leadership role suited to an experienced software testing professional who is passionate about quality engineering, automation, and mentoring others.

The successful candidate will take ownership of the testing function, leading automation initiatives while coordinating testing activities across agile software development teams. They will be responsible for driving quality standards, improving testing processes, mentoring junior testers, and ensuring high-quality software delivery.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the planning, design and execution of comprehensive testing strategies.
• Collaborate with business stakeholders, analysts, developers and product owners to define testing scope and quality objectives.
• Take ownership of the overall testing effort across projects.
• Introduce and implement testing best practices, standards and processes.
• Streamline testing workflows to improve efficiency and quality.
• Coordinate testing activities with software development teams throughout the software development lifecycle.

Test Automation

• Design, develop and maintain scalable automated testing frameworks using Playwright .
• Develop reusable automated test scripts for web applications and APIs.
• Continuously improve automation coverage and execution efficiency.
• Integrate automated testing into CI/CD pipelines.

Test Execution & Quality Assurance

• Perform functional, integration, regression, system and API testing.
• Execute both manual and automated test cases where required.
• Identify, reproduce, document and track defects using tools such as Jira or Azure DevOps .
• Verify defect fixes and ensure quality standards are met before production releases.
• Validate backend data using SQL queries and database tools.
• Work with MS SQL Server and other relational databases to verify data integrity.
• Support testing across multiple environments.
• Collaborate with DevOps teams to ensure continuous testing within deployment pipelines.
• Mentor and coach junior and intermediate testers.
• Review automated test scripts and testing artefacts.
• Promote a culture of continuous improvement and quality engineering.
• Drive adoption of modern testing methodologies and automation practices.

Requirements

Experience

• 5–7+ years' professional experience in software testing.
• Proven experience in both manual and automated testing.
• Demonstrated experience leading or coordinating testing teams and activities.

Qualifications

• Relevant tertiary qualification in Computer Science, Information Technology or Software Development; and/or
• Recognised software testing certifications (e.g. ISTQB or equivalent).

Technical Skills

The successful candidate should demonstrate experience with:

• API testing
• Functional, regression, integration and system testing