At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead test strategy, design automation frameworks, and mentor QA engineers in a dynamic Agile team.
- Company: Join a world-leading tech organisation investing in Belfast's engineering talent.
- Benefits: Competitive salary up to £75,000 plus performance bonuses and hybrid working.
- Other info: Opportunity for significant career growth in a purpose-built office.
- Why this job: Work with cutting-edge AI tools and tackle complex, high-stakes problems.
- Qualifications: Extensive QA automation experience and proficiency in programming languages.
Lead SDET role at a world-leading technology organisation with AI-assisted testing, Playwright, BDD, Cucumber and CI/CD pipeline integration. Hybrid working from a brand new Belfast city centre office. Salary up to £75,000 plus 10 to 15% performance bonus.
Why This Organisation
Our client is one of the most significant technology organisations operating globally. Their systems cannot afford to fail. Quality is not a checkbox here; it is a core engineering discipline built into every sprint, every release and every architectural decision. They are investing seriously in Belfast, having hired 70 people this year and moved into a brand new office in Belfast city centre, purpose-built for the engineering team they are growing for the long term. This is a core engineering hub tackling complex, high-stakes problems with modern technology and real autonomy.
If you are a senior QA engineer who wants to work somewhere where your work genuinely matters, where quality engineering is taken seriously at every level, and where the organisation around you has the scale and ambition to match your ability, this is worth your attention.
The Role and What It Can Do For Your Career
This is a Lead SDET position at the heart of a high performing Agile engineering team. You will lead on test strategy, own automation frameworks and drive quality from the earliest stages of development through to production. The role is genuinely senior in scope, not just in title.
What makes this role stand out for your career is threefold:
- AI assisted testing is a core expectation here, not a future aspiration. You will be working with tools like Copilot, ChatGPT and Amazon Q day to day, building and refining automation workflows.
- The mentoring remit is real. You will be growing the QA capability of the engineers around you, which means your influence extends well beyond your own output.
- The complexity of the systems you will be testing is significant, involving distributed, cloud native platforms processing global transaction volumes.
The stack includes Playwright, BDD with Cucumber, CI and CD pipeline integration across Jenkins and GitLab, performance and load testing with K6 and JMeter, and API and end to end testing across complex distributed systems. You will collaborate with global BA, Development and QA teams and contribute to the evolution of scalable, self-healing automation frameworks.
Key responsibilities include:
- Lead test strategy across the Agile team, balancing manual, automated and performance testing with a strong shift left and API first emphasis.
- Design, develop and maintain automated and functional tests within CI and CD pipelines.
- Build and maintain scalable, self-healing automation frameworks using Playwright or WebDriverIO.
- Leverage AI tools including Copilot, ChatGPT and Amazon Q to optimise testing efficiency and automation workflows.
- Champion quality across the Agile team, promoting best practices including unit testing and code reviews.
- Identify performance bottlenecks and provide actionable recommendations.
- Mentor and coach team members to elevate QA standards across the engineering function.
- Collaborate with global BA, Development and QA teams to design and coordinate effective test strategies.
What you will need:
- Extensive experience in QA automation within Agile environments.
- Strong automation experience using Selenium, Cypress, Playwright or TestComplete.
- Proficiency in Java, JavaScript or similar programming and scripting languages.
- Proven ability to design and maintain scalable automation frameworks, ideally with Playwright or WebDriverIO.
- Experience integrating automation within CI and CD pipelines using Jenkins, GitLab, TeamCity or similar.
- Hands-on experience with BDD frameworks such as Cucumber.
- Experience using AI tools to design and optimise test automation.
- Strong experience in API, functional and end to end testing.
- Working knowledge of non-functional testing including performance, load and stress testing with K6 or JMeter.
- Experience working in Agile or SAFe environments with distributed teams.
Lead Software Engineer In Test employer: Ocho People
Ocho People is an excellent employer that fosters a dynamic and supportive work culture in Belfast, perfect for those looking to advance their careers in finance. With a commitment to employee growth, we offer study support alongside competitive salaries and benefits, ensuring our team members thrive both professionally and personally in a fast-paced environment.
