Staff Quality Assurance Engineer, Reward Gateway

• Demonstrable Quality Engineering / QA experience, including proven experience at Staff or Lead level
• Track record leading test strategy for large, cross-team programmes - not just squad-level testing
• Deep technical expertise in test automation frameworks - Cypress, Selenium, Playwright, Jmeter or equivalent
• Previous experience with PHP testing ecosystems (Symfony/PHPUnit) or Python testing frameworks - ability to lead framework standardisation decisions
• Strong understanding of CI/CD pipelines, branching strategies, and test integration at the pipeline level
• Experience with API testing, contract testing, and integration testing patterns for microservices and monolith architectures
• Experience with shift-left quality practices
• Proven ability to define and enforce quality gates, go/no-go criteria, and release readiness conditions for strategic programmes
• Excellent communication skills - proven ability to present quality status to senior engineering and product leadership
• Prior experience working with distributed teams across multiple locations

Desirable

• The Staff QA Engineer is a senior individual contributor within the QA COE, reporting directly to the Head of QA. This role combines deep technical quality engineering expertise with QA management responsibility for large strategic programmes
• This role operates at the intersection of hands-on quality engineering and programme-level quality governance - setting standards across squads, leading test strategy for strategic initiatives, and driving quality culture across the engineering organisation
• This is not a people management role. It is a technical lead role with programme testing governance accountability
• Quality Engineering Leadership
• Driving quality engineering standards, automation strategy, and testing best practices across the allocated engineering squads. Acting as the technical lead on test architecture, tooling decisions, and shift-left implementation
• Large Programme QA Management
• Providing dedicated QA management and governance for strategic change programmes. Owning the test strategy, quality gates, go/no-go sign-off authority, and risk escalation for each programme
• Track and maintain the Definition of Readiness (DoR) quality criteria across all squads, ensuring quality is embedded before development begins
• Review and improve the test pyramid per squad - driving the rebalance toward meaningful unit, integration, and E2E coverage (target: 60-20-20)
• Lead test strategy reviews for critical coverage areas
• Own the automation strategy for allocated Technical domains
• Drive API integration testing strategy framework standardisation
• Be a key contributor in QA Community of Practice - monthly sessions sharing best practices, shift-left learnings, and tooling updates
• Conduct quarterly testing efficiency audits across squads - identify coverage gaps, flaky test patterns, and automation opportunities
• Contribute to the AI-driven QE roadmap - evaluating AI test generation, self-healing automation, and defect prediction tooling as the QA CoE evolves
• Own the end-to-end test strategy for assigned strategic programmes - covering functional, non-functional, integration, performance, security, and data validation testing
• Establish quality gates and go/no-go decision criteria for each programme milestone
• Provide QA sign-off authority - confirming testing completed, critical defects resolved, regression passed, known issues documented, and QA exit criteria met
• Coordinate cross-squad testing dependencies - large programmes touch multiple product pillars and require integrated test planning across teams
• Prepare and present programme quality status to the Head of QA (weekly) and to programme steering committees as required
• Manage programme-level defect triage and prioritisation - ensuring severity and priority dimensions are applied consistently
• Lead Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for programme-related production incidents - documenting findings and driving preventive actions
• Partner with Heads of Engineering, Squad Leads, and Product Managers to embed quality thinking at every stage of the development lifecycle
• Participate in release retros as the QA quality lens - providing neutral, systemic improvement recommendations
• Represent QA in 3 Amigos sessions - supporting squads in defining acceptance criteria, edge cases, and non-functional requirements at story level
• Build strong relationships with the QA team - supporting current QA engineers

• Screening call with a member of the Talent Acquisition Team
• First stage interview with one of the Staff QA’s / Engineering Manager
• Final stage interview with Head of QA