Lead Automation Engineer

The Lead Automation Engineer will own test automation as a discipline across our product engineering organisation. Automation is the core of the role: define frameworks, set CI/CD quality gates, and lift the wider QA and engineering teams to a level where automated coverage scales with the product instead of headcount. You’ll lead the modernization of our test estate from a legacy Selenium suite toward a modern, AI‑augmented automation stack, and you’ll be the technical authority that pillar QAs and engineers look to when writing tests.

Responsibilities

• Own the automation strategy
• Define and build the test automation frameworks for both our front‑end and back‑end estates — choosing the tools, setting the patterns, and writing the reference implementations others will follow.
• Set coverage targets (unit, integration, end‑to‑end) and the policy for how they’re enforced.
• Establish CI/CD quality gates in GitHub Actions: fail builds on test failure, block deployments below threshold, surface flakiness before it rots the suite.
• Own reporting, dashboards, and the overall health of the test infrastructure.
• Drive the migration from legacy Selenium
• Lead the parallel‑stack testing problem: legacy suites must keep running while the modern stack is built out alongside them.
• Design and execute the migration path from Selenium toward Cypress and Playwright at scale — not test‑by‑test, but as a structured programme with prioritisation, tooling, and a clear endpoint.
• Multiply the team's capability
• Train pillar QAs to write automated tests in C# / .NET or TypeScript depending on their stack.
• Train engineers on unit test expectations, integration test design, and the quality bar in code review.
• Mentor and pair with QAs and engineers on real test code — this role succeeds when the rest of the org gets better at automation, not when you write every test yourself.
• Use AI tooling as a force multiplier
• Embed AI assistants and MCP‑connected tooling (browsers, issue trackers, internal APIs, documentation) into the day‑to‑day authoring, triage, and review workflow.
• Set the standards for how the wider team uses AI in QA — what to trust, what to verify, where it accelerates and where it doesn’t.
• Lead technically across pillars
• Partner with Senior QA Engineers on test architecture for high‑risk, cross‑service releases.
• Participate in code reviews with a focus on testability, coverage, and quality.
• Continuously improve the tooling, methodology, and standards.

Experience and qualifications

Essential

• Proven track record building and running automation frameworks at scale — not just authoring tests inside someone else’s framework.
• Demonstrable experience driving Selenium‑to‑Cypress or Selenium‑to‑Playwright migrations across a meaningful test estate.
• Strong CI/CD engineering: building pipelines, designing quality gates, debugging flakiness, managing test infrastructure.
• Proficiency in both C# / .NET and TypeScript, or strong proficiency in one with credible working knowledge of the other.
• Experience leading and mentoring other QAs and engineers on test writing — this role is judged on team‑wide capability, not personal output.
• Fluency in using AI tooling day‑to‑day (Claude Code or similar agentic tools, MCP servers) to accelerate test design, authoring, triage, and review.
• Excellent communication: you can defend a framework choice to engineering leadership and pair with a junior QA on the same day.

Preferred

• Experience defining coverage policy and getting it adopted across engineering teams.
• Familiarity with Kubernetes‑based environments and how that shapes test infrastructure decisions.
• Performance and security testing experience.
• Track record running QA in a parallel‑stack modernisation (legacy and modern systems live alongside each other).
• Agile delivery experience at team and programme level.

Benefits

• Competitive Base Salary
• Generous Holiday Package – 25 Days + 10 Public Holidays
• Private Medical, Dental & Vision
• Employee Wellness Program and Classes
• Flexible model of hybrid working