Lead Software Test Engineer

Job title: Lead Software Test Engineer

Reports to: Bioinformatics & Software Team Leader / Head of Bioinformatics & Software

Location: Hybrid – 2/3 days onsite at Manchester Science Park

Contract Type: Full-time, Permanent

Salary & Benefits: Competitive Salary + Benefits Package

About Yourgene Health:

Yourgene Health is a leading integrated technologies and services business, enabling the delivery of genomic medicine. The group works in partnership with global leaders in DNA technology to advance diagnostic science. Our mission to enable scientific advances to positively impact human health remains at the core of our focus. It drives and motivates us to develop class leading products and services to meet our customers’ needs.

Yourgene primarily develops, manufactures, and commercialises simple and accurate molecular diagnostic solutions, for reproductive health, precision medicine and infectious diseases. We have a comprehensive offering of non-invasive prenatal tests (NIPT) NGS workflows that have been built with labs in mind, and clinical prenatal screening services. The IONA® test was the pioneer, the first to market as an IVD product, changing the NIPT screening landscape back in 2015. Continuing to build on our expertise in cell-free DNA, our next generation size selection Ranger® Technology uses machine vision for superior precision. With multiple platforms for a range of clinical and research cfDNA sample preparation applications including NIPT, liquid biopsy, gene synthesis and long fragment recovery.

In addition, we offer a portfolio of screening products in reproductive health, precision medicine and infectious disease including screening assays for cystic fibrosis and DPYD genotyping to prevent chemotoxicity.

Yourgene Genomic Services provides a range of genetic analysis services for our clinical, research and pharma customers to support partners with DNA extractions, biobanking, genotyping, arrays and sequencing workflows (WES and WGS). Yourgene Genomic Services offers a Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT) Service, enabling clinics to run their own NIPT service for pregnant women with our prenatal screening tests and service laboratory based in Manchester.

Yourgene Health is part of the Novacyt group of companies and is headquartered in Manchester, UK with facilities in Singapore and Canada.

Our Culture:

Yourgene is a growing, vibrant and exciting place to work, we are looking for committed driven individuals to be part of our next growth journey. Our culture is described by our employee\’s as collegiate, friendly, professional, innovative, open and fast paced. We have many social and wellbeing initiatives run by our Nova Social and Charity Huddle that keep our sense of community and togetherness alive. At Yourgene we focus on putting values led programmes in place to ensure that we can attract, retain and develop our people. We want our people to have a career with Yourgene and we ensure that they are recognised and rewarded for their achievements and commitment, everyone plays a critical role in our growth journey.

Description of role:

We have an opportunity for a full-time and permanent Lead Software Test Engineer to join our Software and Bioinformatics Development team to support the development and maintenance of the company’s reproductive health and precision medicine data analysis and reporting products. Working as a member of the software development team, you will help develop user-friendly software solutions for customers’ use of our assays. You will lead and contribute to the full range of software test activities across the software lifecycle for analysis pipelines and user interfaces across our full portfolio of reproductive health, precision medicine and infectious disease products.

Whether working on the software for a research use only or regulated assay, you will ensure that our product design and maintenance meets our ISO13485 and ISO9001 quality management system requirements and that software meets the required standards. You will support our genomics services and product development functions with verification of software systems for a range of clinical assays within an ISO15189 environment.

Key areas of responsibility:

• Provide software testing expertise and input to development projects.
• Contribute to continuous improvement of departmental processes.
• Follow departmental processes to ensure software components and products meet customer expectations for quality, reliability and security.
• Lead other team members who contribute to test activities throughout the software development life cycle.
• Keep up to date with new technologies to improve the software test process and enable new product development.
• Provide expert technical support for customers when required.

Qualifications, Skills and Abilities:

Essential

• A degree in Computer Science or similar technical subject, preferably with a software development component.
• Good knowledge and understanding of the fundamental elements and workflow of software development processes.
• Experience of a variety of software testing methodologies (e.g. UI and API functional testing, non-functional testing, security testing, usability testing).
• Proficiency in one or more programming and/or scripting languages for test automation (e.g. Python, C#, Java, JavaScript).
• Experience of selecting and configuring automated test frameworks (e.g. Playwright, Cypress).
• Problem solving skills and ability to respond to sudden unexpected demands.
• Ability to prioritise software testing activities to maximise value.
• Must have ability to anticipate and resolve problems before they arise.
• Enthusiasm, drive, thoroughness, diligence and a willingness to take personal responsibility to ensure that projects are successful.
• Excellent organizational skills and outstanding attention to detail.

Desirable

• Experience of testing in a wide range of software environments: Windows desktop, Linux and cloud-based software
• Experience of testing complex algorithms, ideally in the context of analysis of Next Generation Sequencing data.
• Experience of integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience of working within a quality system in a regulated industry, particularly ISO13485, ISO9001 and/or ISO15189.
• Experience of working within interdisciplinary teams (e.g. scientific/engineering/design).
• Demonstrated experience to lead and deliver verification of complex products on time.

Closing Date:

Wednesday 18th June, 2025

Equal opportunities:

Yourgene Health and the Novacyt Group of companies provides equal employment opportunities for all current employees and applicants for employment. This policy means that no one will be discriminated against because of race, religion, creed, color, national origin, nationality, citizenship, ancestry, sex, age, marital status, physical or mental disability, affectional or sexual orientation, gender identity, military or veteran status, genetic predisposing characteristics or any other basis prohibited by law.

Notice to Agency and Search Firm Representatives:

Yourgene Health and the Novacyt Group of companies is not accepting unsolicited resumes from agencies and/or search firms for this job posting. Resumes submitted to any Yourgene Health and Novacyt Group employee by a third party agency and/or search firm without a valid written and signed search agreement, will become the sole property of Yourgene Health and the Novacyt Group of companies. No fee will be paid if a candidate is hired for this position as a result of an unsolicited agency or search firm referral. Thank you.