Software Engineer in Test Automation in Whitehall

We're looking for a Software Engineer in Test Automation who is passionate about engineering scalable quality systems and automated guardrails that ensure confidence in every deployment of FT's award‑winning digital products. You'll join the Mobile Apps team, a multidisciplinary, cross‑functional group focused on delivering an outstanding mobile experience for our world‑class news.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop and maintain robust, reusable, and scalable automated test frameworks using tools such as Selenium, Cypress, Appium or Playwright.
• Integrate automated tests in CI/CD pipelines to support rapid, reliable delivery.
• Optimize test suites for speed, stability and clarity of failure.
• Maintain infrastructure and tooling for distributed and parallel test execution (e.g. Sauce Labs, BrowserStack, AWS Device Farm).
• Analyze user stories and system architecture to define effective and proportionate test coverage.
• Design and implement functional, regression, smoke and integration test scenarios.
• Collaborate with teams to shift quality left by identifying risks early and integrating testability into software design.
• Drive test data strategy and support deterministic, data‑driven testing.
• Make pragmatic trade‑offs between delivery speed, risk, and quality.
• Investigate flaky tests, failures and false positives; contribute to root‑cause analysis and resolution.
• Improve pipeline stability and feedback loops through cross‑team collaboration.
• Contribute to the broader test engineering community, sharing learnings and evolving best practices.
• Support teams to deliver quality software without reliance on central QA.

Qualifications

• Proven experience designing test strategies, not just writing tests.
• Experience designing and implementing automated guardrails that protect platform quality at scale.
• Experience defining and using quality signals to support release decisions.
• Experience enabling multiple teams to deliver quality software without central QA dependency.
• Experience building and maintaining automated quality gates in CI/CD pipelines.
• Ability to define and improve test coverage, reliability and signal quality.
• Strong programming skills in JavaScript/TypeScript, Java or Python.
• Hands‑on experience testing web and mobile applications (iOS and Android).
• Strong analytical skills and ability to diagnose issues across code, test and environment.
• Clear communication skills across engineering and non‑technical stakeholders.

Desirable:

• Experience defining platform‑level quality standards, guardrails and release criteria across multiple teams.
• Experience improving or replacing flaky E2E test strategies.
• Knowledge of testing in production practices (feature flags, canary releases, rollback strategies).
• Familiarity with observability and production monitoring tools.
• Experience supporting or coaching teams to improve testing practices.
• Experience influencing engineering practices across teams without direct authority.
• Experience designing quality dashboards or reporting that provide actionable insights.
• Familiarity with cloud‑based device farms.

Benefits

Full details of our benefits are available here. In general, we offer generous annual leave, medical cover, inclusive parental leave packages, subsidised gym memberships and opportunities to give back to the community. We have a 50% hybrid working model (two to three days onsite) and are open to accommodating flexible working pattern requests where feasible.

Accessibility & Diversity

We are a disability‑confident employer and Valuable 500 signatory. Please let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments or personalisation as part of the application process or to attend an interview.

Equal Opportunity

FinancialTimes is an inclusive employer and a member of myGwork – the largest global platform for the LGBTQ+ business community. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of background.