Automation Test Lead

Lead QA Engineer Location: Nottingham, 2 days a week in the office Salary: up to £60k depending on experience We’re looking for a passionate and detail-driven QA professional who wants to take ownership of quality, improve how software is built, and play a key role in shaping how products are delivered to users at scale. This is a hands-on technical leadership role where you’ll work closely with developers, business analysts, and cloud engineering teams to strengthen testing practices, reduce defects in production, and continuously improve the delivery pipeline. You’ll be central to defining what “good quality” looks like and ensuring it is consistently achieved. You’ll thrive in this role if you enjoy getting into the detail of how systems work, identifying issues before they reach customers, and building confidence in every release that goes out the door. What You’ll Be Doing You’ll take ownership of quality assurance across the development lifecycle, working closely with stakeholders to shape clear, testable requirements and ensure defects are well understood, documented, and resolved effectively. You’ll design, maintain, and improve automated test coverage using modern testing frameworks, while also contributing to broader testing strategy, including API and performance testing. You’ll work within CI/CD pipelines to help ensure smooth, reliable, and efficient releases. You’ll also play a key role in release readiness, collaborating with engineering and product teams to ensure every deployment meets agreed quality standards and is delivered with confidence. Alongside hands-on testing, you’ll help define QA standards across the team, contribute to continuous improvement initiatives, and provide meaningful reporting on quality metrics and release efficiency. What You Bring You’ll bring strong hands-on experience in modern QA engineering, along with a mindset focused on prevention rather than just detection of issues. We’re looking for someone comfortable working across: TypeScript and modern browser debugging tools Test automation frameworks such as Cypress, Playwright, or Selenium API testing tools such as Postman or Bruno Git-based workflows and CI/CD environments (including Bitbucket) Performance and load testing tools such as k6 or JMeter You’ll also be confident working in Agile environments, collaborating with cross-functional teams, and clearly communicating complex technical issues in a simple, structured way. A strong understanding of SQL, AWS (particularly monitoring tools such as CloudWatch), and front-end technologies such as CSS selectors will be valuable. Experience with Vue.js is also beneficial. You’ll ideally have some exposure to test case management tools and release management practices, along with an interest in improving automation, efficiency, and delivery quality. Leadership or mentoring experience within a small team will be an advantage, as this role has a natural progression into broader QA ownership and influence. The Kind of Person Who Thrives Here You’re someone who notices the small details others miss. You enjoy understanding how systems behave under pressure, and you take pride in improving both product quality and engineering processes. You’re proactive, collaborative, and comfortable working across technical and non-technical teams to get things done properly