Head of Test Engineering

Company Description

We are Together – Proud to be a Financial Services success story based in South Manchester. Established in 1974, we employ over 600 colleagues.

A specialist lender offering a range of mortgage and secured loan products to individuals and businesses, who are typically underserved by mainstream lenders. We play our part to turn challenges into opportunities which make our customers' financial ambitions accessible.

Over 47 years of successful trading has positioned Together as a market leader, thanks to a common–sense approach to lending.

Together is a business that never stands still, providing an exciting place to work for individuals who deliver to a high–standard and embrace change.

We understand that for our business to grow, our people must grow.

Job Description

Salary GBP60,000 – GBP70,000 plus bonus and benefits

Job Purpose

As Head of Test Engineering, you will have the opportunity to join the next phase of evolution for a long established, well respected organisation. As part of the IT team, you will ensure high quality releases, adherence to internal and external standards and quality controls through manual and automated testing.

You will work closely with colleagues through the business and technical teams as part of cross functional teams set up to build and deliver the essential products needed to support the Together business. You will have the opportunity to create a modern automated test strategy for the organisation and to see it through to delivering effective results. You will be a key player in the transformation of Together technical capability. This role will be the ideal challenge for an experienced test expert who is keen on driving organisational level test strategy and execution within a modern cloud enabled devops environment.

Key Accountabilities

• Adherence to IT Change and Operational policies and standards
• Taking ownership of the test strategy and approach across the organisation and leading the test engineering team
• Define the test strategy for the organisation and oversee the test approach for the major projects and programmes in the portfolio.
• Lead the management and development of the test engineering capability within Together and the evolution of that capability as we move to a continuous integration and delivery model.
• Work with the engineering teams to select, deploy and operationalise the right test tools to support Together's strategy
• Drive a continuous quality culture throughout the technology organisation and be the conscience of the technology team for quality
• Work with the other members of the technology management team to embed the right culture and behaviours across the permanent team and our vendors.
• Help to define appropriate training for our technology and business colleagues to support the test agenda.
• Playing an active role in mentoring/ coaching/ training and development of other team members within the cross functional team
• Understanding the various phases of the software development lifecycle
• Working closely with the cross functional teams and solution teams to ensure that their test plans are appropriate and effective
• Reviewing test strategies to guarantee the quality of the delivery, assisting in the diagnosis of problems encountered during testing
• Leading the delivery of high–quality automated testing of our cutting–edge new and existing software products and features, across Frontend, Backend, web and mobile apps
• Helping to lead a quality centric culture within the combined team focusing on delivering a quality product, rapidly and with repeatable quality

Managing People

• Driving and managing performance through coaching, support and strategic goals.
• Managing the colleagues through the colleague life cycle of employment:
• Training and mentoring
• Role model and set standards aligned to the company

Qualifications

Essential Skills

• A deep understanding of the strategies needed within an organisation to drive a testing approach which supports continuous integration and delivery and meets the business needs.
• Ability to lead a team of test engineers delivering work across a number of different delivery streams.
• Self starting and able to organise yourself to deliver outstanding results
• Experience in the generation of automated test suites to ensure that requirements are satisfied, including happy and unhappy path approaches
• Familiarity with the other testing tools and frameworks such as UIpath and Postman would be useful
• Automated testing of complex web applications with multiple workflows and paths
• Experience of working as part of an agile team, and integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines (Microsoft)
• Performance testing to identify potential issues (response times, database metrics, infrastructure metrics)
• Experience of working in an enterprise environment
• Experience with Azure & AWS cloud infrastructure, services, and offerings desirable
• Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment
• Experience with DevOps Procedures and process and working in an Agile Environment
• Results oriented with the ability to consistently meet deadlines
• Accountable and takes ownership
• Strong interpersonal skills
• A flexible and adaptable approach to working

Desirable Skills

• Experience in the financial services industry would be advantageous