Senior QA Engineer (we have office locations in Cambridge, Leeds & London)

Company Description

Genomics England partners with the NHS to provide whole genome sequencing diagnostics. We also equip researchers to find the causes of disease and develop new treatments - with patients and participants at the heart of it all.

Our mission is to continue refining, scaling, and evolving our ability to enable others to deliver genomic healthcare and conduct genomic research.

We are accelerating our impact and working with patients, doctors, scientists, government and industry to improve genomic testing, and help researchers access the health data and technology they need to make new medical discoveries and create more effective, targeted medicines for everybody.

Job Description

Are you passionate about solving complex quality-assurance challenges with test-automation throughout the SDLC, and at all levels of the test pyramid? As a Senior QA Engineer in the new Test Enablement team, you'll have the opportunity to work with your peers in product teams to help them solve their quality-assurance challenges.
You will build reusable testing tools and automation, help to make strategic tooling choices, establish quality-assurance Golden Paths, and work towards maturing our testing practices across the organisation. You will look at the big picture problems that come with testing complex, distributed applications in a regulated industry, and you will work to improve the reliability and speed of our software delivery through accelerated and optimised testing.

In this role, you'll work in partnership with engineers in product squads to test and evolve common solutions. You will experiment with alternative strategies for solving problems and use data and analysis to make decisions. You will be highly confident engaging with subject matter experts and engineering leadership. You will be a curious and engaged listener, seeking to understand the root cause of testing challenges, but you will also be confident in challenging assumptions and promoting best practice. You will be actively tracking the latest developments in testing tools and techniques, always looking to learn and to bring new ideas to the business. You are confident engaging with a range of stakeholders to understand organisational needs and bring them back to the team for consideration.

Everyday responsibilities include:

• Work with the rest of the Test Enablement team to identify areas of greatest need where the team can have the greatest impact
• Collaborate with QA engineers in product squads to help them raise the bar in their testing practices
• Explore different approaches to testing challenges, explore options and be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of them
• Create templates, tools and Golden Paths that encapsulate best practice for use deployment the organisation
• Act as a trusted mentor, coach and guide to your colleagues in the team and beyond
• Lead on key decisions in a collaborative and inclusive environment that values diverse perspectives
• Advocate for the need to rethink and improve Quality Assurance to better serve the needs of the business and improve speed and reliability of releases

Essential skills and experience:

• Python
• Java
• Selenium WebDriver
• Unit Test frameworks (e.g. Pytest)
• API testing (e.g. REST-assured, Postman)
• BDD frameworks (e.g. Cucumber, Pytest-bdd, Behave)
• Agile testing
• CI/CD tools (GitLab/Jenkins)
• Load/Performance testing (e.g. JMeter, Locust)
• Experience of Test Process Improvement and Test Strategy

Desirable skills and experience:

• Other UI testing tools (e.g. Playwright, Cypress)
• Contract testing (e.g. PACT)
• Mock APIs (e.g. WireMock)
• Browser compatibility tools (e.g. BrowserStack)
• Test management tools (e.g. Jira X-ray)
• Accessibility testing tools (e.g. Axe-core)
• Security testing tools (e.g. Snyk, OWASP Zap)
• AWS
• Experience working in a regulated environment

Qualifications

Only relevant work experience - no particular qualifications are required

Additional Information

Salary from: £55,500

Being an integral part of such a meaningful mission is extremely rewarding in itself, but in order to support our people, we're continually improving our benefits package. We pride ourselves on investing in our people and supporting them to achieve their career goals, as well as offering a benefits package including:

• Generous Leave: 30 days' holiday plus bank holidays, additional leave for long service, and the option to apply for up to 30 days of remote working abroad annually (approval required).
• Family-Friendly: Blended working arrangements, flexible working, enhanced maternity, paternity and shared parental leave benefits.
• Pension & Financial: Defined contribution pension (Genomics England double-matches up to 10%, however you can contribute more if you wish), Life Assurance (3x salary), and a Give As You Earn scheme.
• Learning & Development: Individual learning budgets, support for training and certifications, and reimbursement for one annual professional subscription (approval required).
• Recognition & Rewards: Employee recognition programme and referral scheme.
• Health & Wellbeing: Subsidised gym membership, a free Headspace account, and access to an Employee Assistance Programme, eye tests, flu jabs.

Equal opportunities and our commitment to a diverse and inclusive workplace

Genomics England is actively committed to providing and supporting an inclusive environment that promotes equity, diversity and inclusion best practice both within our community and in any other area where we have influence. We are proud of our diverse community where everyone can come to work and feel welcomed and treated with respect regardless of any disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, or social background.

Genomics England's policies of non-discrimination and equity and will be applied fairly to all people, regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, being pregnant or recently becoming a parent, race, religion or beliefs, sex or sexual orientation, length of service, whether full or part-time or employed under a permanent or a fixed-term contract or any other relevant factor.

Genomics England does not tolerate any form of discrimination, harassment, victimisation or bullying at work. Such behaviour is contrary to our virtues, undermines our mission and core values and diminishes the dignity, respect and integrity of all parties. Our People policies outline our commitment to inclusivity.

We aim to remove barriers in our recruitment processes and to be flexible with our interview processes. Should you require any adjustments that may help you to fully participate in the recruitment process, we encourage you to discuss this with us.

Blended working model

Genomics England operates a blended working model as we know our people appreciate the flexibility that hybrid working can bring. We expect most people to come into the office a minimum of 2 times each month. However, this will vary according to role and will be agreed with your team leader. There is no expectation that people will return to the office full time unless they want to, however, some of our roles require full time on site attendance e.g., lab teams, reception team.

Our teams and squads have, and will continue to reflect on what works best for them to work together successfully and have the freedom to design working patterns to suit, beyond the minimum. Our office locations are: Canary Wharf, Cambridge and Leeds.

Onboarding background checks

As part of our recruitment process, all successful candidates are subject to a Standard Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. We therefore require applicants to disclose any previous offences at point of application, as some unspent convictions may mean we are unable to proceed with your application due to the nature of our work in healthcare.