Lead Quality Engineer - Automation & AI in City of London

Welcome to Hastings Direct. We’re a digital insurance provider with ambitious plans to become the best and biggest in the UK market. We’ve invested in our pricing and data capabilities and nurture our 4Cs culture. We provide insurance for over four million customers and aim to improve pricing through Pricing, Data and Analytics, driven by curiosity, collaboration and constructive challenge.

The Role

We are seeking a senior, hands-on QA leader to drive technological transformation of testing across our pricing platforms. This role is responsible for improving quality, pace, and confidence of delivery through modern testing techniques, automation, and AI-enabled approaches, while leading and developing a high-performing QA function. The role operates across our in-house rating engine and Azure/GitHub-based engineering landscape. You will work with pricing engineers, ML engineers, and underwriting teams to modernise how testing is designed, executed, and governed, reducing duplication of effort and lowering post-live issues. This role combines hands-on technical involvement, strong people leadership, and strategic ownership of testing capability, tooling, and environments.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end QA strategy and execution across all underwriting lines of business, ensuring testing supports high-quality delivery at pace.
• Design, implement, and evolve the QA strategy covering pre-live testing, post-release monitoring, and live issue investigation, focusing on quality, pace, and confidence of delivery.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership in reviewing test strategies, automation design, and investigation of complex defects, including examination of rating behaviour and data inputs.
• Lead strategic and practical use of test automation, ensuring automation is targeted, maintainable, and focused on the highest-risk areas.
• Drive improvements in automation and tooling to reduce manual effort and strengthen preventative quality controls, applying AI-assisted techniques where beneficial.
• Collaborate with pricing engineers and ML teams to apply AI-assisted testing techniques where value is added, ensuring governance for a regulated environment.
• Own post-release quality activities, including monitoring, alerting, and validation of controls, ensuring issues are detected early with effective feedback loops.
• Improve QA test environments for data testing with minimal environment-related failures.
• Support incident RCA activity by providing testing insight and evidence, embedding learnings into improved testing practices.
• Line-manage QA Leads and the Automation Manager, providing direction, prioritisation, coaching, and performance support.
• Ensure QA activities prevent customer harm and support regulatory and governance requirements.
• Maintain strong communication and organisation to manage multiple initiatives and report progress, risks, and outcomes clearly.
• Develop and maintain QA documentation, standards, and artefacts to ensure testing practices are consistent and auditable.
• Define and track quality metrics such as defect trends, test effectiveness, automation coverage, and release readiness.
• Support recruitment and development of QA talent through active involvement and mentoring.

Skills, Knowledge And Expertise

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Strong experience leading QA or test engineering teams in complex, data-driven or regulated environments.
• Hands-on technical capability to write, read, and review code and contribute to test design and automation decisions.
• Strong proficiency in Python, including writing automated tests and debugging complex rules-based systems.
• Experience designing and maintaining test automation, including API and integration testing using frameworks such as pytest, with familiarity with UI tools (Selenium, Playwright, or Cypress) where appropriate.
• Experience applying AI-assisted testing tools with governance and control awareness.
• Experience with Git/GitHub, CI/CD pipelines, and Azure-based environments.
• Strong understanding of modern testing practices, including risk-based testing and end-to-end assurance.
• Experience with test environments and test data validation using SQL and data comparison techniques.
• Familiarity with Azure DevOps and producing quality metrics.
• Excellent leadership and stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to balance technical, commercial, and governance considerations.
• Strong problem-solving abilities and clear communication of risks and solutions to diverse audiences.
• Experience working in Agile delivery and collaborating with engineering, data, and ML teams.

Interview Process

• Recruiter screening call; 1st Round – Intro call with Hiring Manager; 2nd Round – Case study round.

What We Will Give You

Join us and you’ll find a different way of doing things. We call it the 4Cs. We focus on getting it right for our colleagues, customers, company and community, with support, training and development, recognition and opportunities to voice ideas.

As a Disability Confident employer, we’re committed to inclusive recruitment with fair access to support. We welcome applications through the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS). For more information, visit our inclusive page on our careers site.

Benefits

• In addition to a competitive salary and £5k car allowance, you will receive:
• Flexible working – hybrid approach
• Competitive bonus scheme – annual 4Cs performance bonus
• Private medical insurance (PMI) for Band 4 colleagues
• Life assurance 4x salary, income protection, pension contributions up to 10%
• Mental wellbeing programme and support services
• 27 days annual leave + bank holidays with buy/sell option

Hastings Group is an equal opportunities employer and a sponsor of an inclusive recruitment process. We conduct background checks as part of our recruitment. If you require reasonable adjustments during recruitment, please let us know.