Senior QA Engineer

The Senior QA Engineer is a key technical role responsible for delivering high-quality, scalable, and maintainable test automation solutions across our API and microservices landscape. We are looking for an enthusiastic and curious STAE with a passion for quality engineering and experience in building robust automation frameworks for backend and frontend systems.

You will work within cross-functional squads in the Customer Value Stream, collaborating with developers, product owners, and DevOps engineers to ensure our APIs and services meet the highest standards of reliability and performance.

You will work with tools such as Playwright, Mockoon, Bruno, Artillery and Playwright amongst others to test both frontend and backend-for-frontend (BFF) solutions. With a DevSecOps mindset, you will provide quality assurance using automation and CI/CD.

Main Duties

Leadership

• Act as a technical lead for initiatives involving API, backend and frontend test automation.
• Mentor and coach QA engineers, promoting knowledge sharing and consistency across squads.
• Influence and evolve the QA strategy, ensuring alignment with engineering and architectural goals.
• Advocate for quality-first principles and champion a shift-left testing mindset.
• Lead by example in engineering excellence and contribute to governance and best practices.

Implementation & Delivery

• Design, build, and maintain scalable test automation frameworks for APIs and microservices.
• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines to ensure rapid and reliable feedback.
• Develop and execute functional and non-functional tests (e.g. performance, security).
• Identify gaps in automation coverage and implement effective solutions.
• Perform exploratory and manual testing where appropriate.
• Drive root cause analysis of defects and collaborate on corrective actions.
• Ensure comprehensive test coverage across the stack, including contract and integration testing.
• Monitor and report on quality metrics to drive continuous improvement.
• Contribute to reducing technical debt and improving long-term maintainability.

Collaboration & Communication

• Work closely with developers, DevOps, product owners, and other stakeholders to embed quality throughout the delivery lifecycle.
• Collaborate with architecture and platform teams to ensure alignment in engineering practices.
• Participate actively in Agile ceremonies and delivery processes.
• Communicate complex technical decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Foster a collaborative engineering culture through Chapters, Squads, and Guilds.

Experience Required

Technical Expertise

• Proven experience designing, building, and maintaining automated test frameworks for UI, Mobile App, APIs and non-functional testing.
• Strong programming skills in JavaScript/TypeScript and experience with BDD frameworks like Cucumber.
• Experience with user interface testing tools such as Playwright.
• Experience with API testing tools such as Postman, Node-Fetch, and RestAssured.
• Strong experience in Mobile App testing using Appium or similar with Simulator and/or Browserstack.
• Skilled in integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines, especially using platforms like Azure or GitLab.
• Familiarity with non-functional testing tools such as Artillery and JMeter.
• Solid understanding of RESTful APIs, SOAP, and data formats like JSON/XML.
• Experience with SQL for data validation and backend testing.
• Knowledge of different types of automation frameworks (e.g., Data Driven, Keyword Driven).
• Experience with contract testing, mocking/stubbing tools, and test data management.
• Understanding of microservices architecture and distributed systems.
• Exposure to containerisation and orchestration tools like Docker, Kubernetes, and Terraform.
• Experience with cloud platforms, ideally Azure or GCP.
• Familiarity with accessibility and compatibility testing tools (e.g., Lambda, Axe).
• Working knowledge of JIRA, Git, and Node.js/NPM.

Desirable Skills

• ISTQB Advanced Test Automation Engineer certification (or equivalent).

Admiral: Where You Can

We take pride in being a diverse and inclusive business. It's a place where you can Be You, and show up as you are. We’re committed to fostering a people-first culture where everyone is accepted, supported, and empowered to be brilliant. You can, Grow And Progress at a pace and direction that suits you, Make A Difference for our customers and each other, and Share in Our Future with all colleagues eligible for up to £3,600 of free shares each year after one year of service.

Everyone receives 33 days holiday (including bank holidays) when they join us, increasing the longer you stay with us, up to a maximum of 38 days (including bank holidays). You also have the option to buy or sell up to an additional five days of annual leave.

We’re proud of our people-first culture. In fact, we've been recognised as a Great Place to Work for Women, a Great Place to Work for Wellbeing, and an overall Great Place to Work for over 25 years! We’re fully committed to making sure your progression is not slowed or halted by barriers related to race, gender, age, sexuality or any of the protected characteristics.

Our fantastic benefits make sure our colleagues have a great work-life balance; You can view some of our other key benefits here.

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