Lead Automation Test Engineer

At TRI, our mission is to make Risk-Based Quality Management (RBQM) simple; making it accessible, understandable, and actionable for clinical trials of any scale and complexity. We develop innovative technologies and simplified solutions to empower research organizations and sponsors, ensuring the highest standards of trial integrity and participant safety.

We are seeking a highly experienced Lead Automation Test Engineer to design, implement, and evolve a robust and scalable automated testing capability that underpins product quality and delivery confidence. This role combines hands-on technical leadership with people management and strategic ownership of test automation frameworks, tooling, and reporting. You will mentor and lead the automation team while acting as a key quality advocate across the organisation.

Responsibilities

• People Leadership & Line Management: Provide effective line management through regular 1:1 meetings, formal performance reviews, and ongoing coaching. Own career development, growth plans, and performance management for direct reports within the automation team.
• Automation Strategy, Planning & Delivery: Lead the planning, design, and development of automated test solutions, ensuring full coverage and adherence to best practices. Drive the creation and maintenance of a scalable, maintainable, and reliable automation test suite.
• Resource & Capacity Planning: Partner closely with the CTPO to define project scope, forecast demand, allocate resources, and establish realistic delivery goals and timelines.
• Technical Leadership & Code Quality: Enforce high standards of code quality through mandatory peer reviews and Pull Request governance. Act as the technical authority for automation frameworks, patterns, and implementation standards.
• Framework & Tooling Evolution: Lead the evaluation, selection, and integration of new automation tools and technologies to continuously improve efficiency and coverage.
• Hands-on Contribution: Remain actively involved by contributing directly to automation development and supporting delivery when required.
• Process Improvement & Metrics: Analyse automation trends, test results, and metrics to identify risks, root causes, and long-term improvement opportunities. Define, refine, and enforce automation standards, best practices, and tooling strategies.
• Reporting & Visibility: Design and maintain a centralised automation reporting infrastructure. Ensure test results and quality metrics are easily accessible, clearly interpretable, and valuable for technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Team Culture & Collaboration: Foster an inclusive, high-performance culture focused on collaboration, technical excellence, and continuous improvement.

Your Skills & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related discipline, or equivalent professional experience in software testing.
• Demonstrable hands-on experience designing and developing test automation frameworks especially Azure DevOps and Cypress.
• Expert-level skills in test analysis, risk-based testing, and automated quality assurance.
• Proven experience managing people or leading a technical automation team or stream.
• Expert knowledge of test automation tools and frameworks relevant to modern software delivery.
• Strong experience working with CI/CD pipelines and automated test reporting infrastructure.
• Proven ability to plan automation activities, estimate effort, and forecast resources effectively.
• Exceptional attention to detail with a consistent focus on delivering high-quality software.
• Excellent communication, mediation, and stakeholder collaboration skills.

Benefits

• Salary - £65,000 - £68,000
• Flexible, remote-first working. You will be able to enjoy all the benefits of working from home, with access to coworking spaces close to you if required (via Hubble membership).
• Generous holiday as standard. We offer 27 days holiday, with a company shutdown between Christmas and New Year. Sometimes we also offer an extra, discretionary, paid day off to celebrate a specific company success.
• Extra holiday on top. For every full year you are with TRI, you will earn an extra day of holiday, up to a maximum of 30 days.
• Carefully considered, market-leading salaries. We regularly benchmark our salaries to make sure we are offering at the top end of the scale. You will have your salary reviewed annually.
• Enhanced pension offer. Following your probation period, you can opt in to our enhanced pension contributions arrangement.
• Health and wellbeing support. We offer all employees a health cash plan with Simply Health, allowing you to look after your health and wellbeing every day.
• Life cover. You will be covered at four times your salary from day one, paid as a tax-free lump sum to your named beneficiary.
• In-person meetings and socials. We have company conferences each year, plus regular team meet-ups throughout the year.
• Training and development. We make sure that you are able to reach your full potential with TRI by offering you access to training and development, plus regular reviews and goal-setting with your line manager.