At a Glance
- Tasks: Shape quality practices and drive excellence in testing across engineering teams.
- Company: Join Kingfisher, a diverse team dedicated to better homes and lives.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, inclusive environment, and opportunities for career growth.
- Other info: Flexible hybrid working model with a focus on collaboration and creativity.
- Why this job: Make a real impact in software quality while collaborating with innovative teams.
- Qualifications: Strong test automation experience and proficiency in API testing tools.
The predicted salary is between 60000 - 80000 £ per year.
About us
We’re Kingfisher, a team of over 74,000 people bringing Kingfisher brands BQ, Screwfix, Brico Depot, Castorama and Koctas to life.
Guided by our purpose Better Homes.
Better Lives.
For Everyone.
We believe a better world starts with better homes, and we work every day to make that a reality.
Join us and help shape the future of home improvement.
About the role
As a Principal Quality Engineer, you will play a crucial role in shaping and driving quality practices across our engineering domain.
You will work closely with Engineering Squad Leads, fellow Principal QEs, and Tooling Specialists to ensure consistency, scalability, and excellence in testing approaches.
You will guide teams in the adoption of best practices, support cross-domain alignment, and actively contribute to our Quality Chapter’s strategic initiatives.
If you\'re looking for an exciting opportunity to step out of your comfort zone and make a real impact building better software, this is the job for you!
Please note that this role can be based from our London Paddington, Southampton or Yeovil office
How We Work
We believe in flexibility and balance.
Our hybrid model blends home working for focus with time spent connecting and collaborating — whether in our offices or at offsite locations.
On average within our Engineering team, 20% of your time involves in-person collaboration.
We value the perspectives new team members bring and encourage you to apply — even if you don’t meet 100% of the requirements.
- What you\'ll do
- Help teams adopt best practices from the Quality Chapter, ensuring they keep pace with our Cloud, Dev Ops, Tooling, and Simulation strategies.
- Bring together Leads and Engineers to align testing approaches and support planning across domains.
- Collaborate with other Principal QEs to share lessons and maintain consistency in ways of working.
- Introduce appropriate testing tools with support from the Tooling Specialists.
- Make sure all Engineering Squads follow agreed testing processes, including Team CI and Group CI.
- Identify and arrange the creation of required test data, in line with our Test Data Strategy.
- Ensure clear and consistent test reporting across the domain.
- Support Quality Chapter goals and wider engineering improvement efforts.
- Promote Agile working methods across teams.
- Highlight future skills and tooling needs to inform wider planning.
- Provide guidance and mentorship to junior team members.
Skills and Experience
- Strong experience in test automation – ideally with Playwright/Cypress or Selenium (experience with both is highly advantageous).
- Proficiency in API testing tools and practices: Postman, RESTAssured, Graph QL.
- Solid programming skills in Type Script/Java Script or Java.
- Experience with microservices and micro-frontends.
- Practical knowledge of CI/CD pipelines using Git Lab (Jenkins is a nice to have).
- Familiarity with cloud environments (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
- Strong understanding of simulation/mocking libraries and performance testing tools.
- Knowledge of security testing concepts is desirable.
- SQL expertise and containerisation tools experience are beneficial.
- Proven ability to influence, mentor and lead across engineering functions.
- Awareness of AI in the context of testing is a plus.
- Excellent command of English (written and spoken).
What We Offer
An inclusive environment where your potential is limited only by your imagination.
We encourage new ideas, support experimentation, and strive to create a workplace where everyone can be their best self.
Find out more about Diversity & Inclusion at Kingfisher here.
We also offer a competitive benefits package and plenty of opportunities to stretch and grow your career.
Diversity & Inclusion
Our customers come from all walks of life - and so do we.
We’re committed to ensuring all colleagues, future colleagues, and applicants are treated equally, regardless of age, gender, marital or civil partnership status, ethnicity, culture, religion, belief, political opinion, disability, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation.
Interested? Great, apply now and help us to Power the Possible.
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StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Principal Quality Engineer in London
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We think you need these skills to ace Principal Quality Engineer in London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at 慨正橡扯.
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How to prepare for a job interview at 慨正橡扯
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If 慨正橡扯 uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.
