We’re looking for a Senior QA Engineer who’s passionate about quality, automation, and continuous improvement. In this role, you’ll lead key quality initiatives across our Digital Squads — enabling better practices, driving automation-first thinking, and helping teams deliver features our customers love. You’ll be an experienced Agile advocate with strong hands-on testing expertise and a drive to iterate, innovate, and elevate how we build software. You’ll also have the depth of knowledge needed to champion automation while supporting others to grow their quality mindset. This is a chance to shape the future of our flagship and emerging products and be part of a meaningful shift towards a stronger, more holistic quality culture. About CDL CDL is one of the UK’s leading software development houses, employing over 600 people at its campus in Stockport. It has a consistent history in the high-volume retail insurance sector. CDL has spearheaded developments in the aggregator, web and telematics space, including connected home, enrichment and self-service solutions. As a result, the company’s robust and innovative technologies have enabled its customers to thrive in the highly competitive UK insurance marketplace. We have built a collaborative and creative culture where we employ agile techniques to deliver our pace-setting applications. We pride ourselves on cultivating an inspiring working environment with our employees at the heart of our company. In a nutshell we are the market leading software house in our industry, creating the software, websites & apps for the Insurance & Finance sector across the UK. If you were to go on a price comparison website, approximately 65% of the companies on there are our clients! What You'll Do Lead the implementation and evolution of strategic automation initiatives across Digital Squads Embed and champion a whole team approach to quality, with a strong focus on the Test Pyramid Coach, mentor, and inspire others - helping them develop skills and adopt better practices Advocate for continuous improvement across processes, tooling, and team behaviors Influence and evangelise CDL’s Testing Vision across the business Drive best practice across functional, nonfunctional, performance, and security testing Encourage innovation, challenge the status quo, and set high standards in everything we do Represent CDL externally in the Testing community, sharing insights and learning from industry developments What You'll Bring An expert understanding of modern testing principles and how they apply across delivery teams Ability to define and apply effective test strategies for complex systems, balancing automation, exploratory testing, and risk‑based approaches. Experience evangelising a left‑shifted approach to quality, working with teams to embed testing and quality practices early in the development lifecycle. Comfortable investigating issues across environments, using logs, metrics, and data to understand failures and support root‑cause analysis. Actively contributes to improving testing practices, standards, and tooling through continuous improvement and knowledge sharing. Strong working knowledge of TDD and BDD A collaborative approach, working hand in hand with Product and Engineering to drive shared outcomes Breadth of testing techniques with deep specialism in automation Hands-on experience with modern automated testing tools, such as Karate and Cypress, applying them effectively across the test pyramid. Familiarity with a range of testing and delivery tools used across the SDLC, including tools for exploratory testing, API documentation, performance testing, and work tracking (e.g. Postman/Bruno, Swagger UI, Gatling, JIRA ). Experience working with CI/CD pipelines, contributing to and maintaining automated quality checks within modern delivery workflows, such as GitLab. Comfortable working within AWS hosted systems, using cloud services to support effective testing, investigation, and quality assurance across distributed applications. A track record of driving improvements from idea to completion Experience adopting or integrating AI within the delivery lifecycle (AIDLC), using AI enabled tooling or practices to accelerate testing, improve coverage, enhance quality insights, or optimise team workflows Curiosity and openness to emerging AI driven testing approaches and their practical application in real-world delivery Desirable extras: Knowledge of accessibility standards and practices (e.g., WCAG), with the ability to embed accessibility considerations into testing strategies and coach teams on inclusive quality approaches. Hands-on experience designing and executing effective test approaches across both mobile and desktop platforms, ensuring consistent quality, usability, and reliability across devices Experience with AI powered testing tools Comfortable interrogating relational databases (e.g. Postgres) using SQL to support testing, debugging, and root‑cause analysis, using tools such as DBeaver or similar. Performance and security testing experience Background in the insurance sector Benefits Salary The salary for the role of Senior QA Engineer pays up to £55,000p.a. providing a fantastic opportunity for career progression through CDL’s clearly defined career framework ( https://progression.cdl.co.uk/ ). Your growth and advancement within CDL are only limited by your own ambition and effort. Benefits Hybrid Working (2 Days a Week in the office - SK4 2HD) Truly flexible working. 25 days holiday to start, increasing by 1 day per 1 year of service up to 30 days. Top employer for 10th year running Excellent training and development platform Opportunities for career progression Health and Wellbeing programme Virtual activities, lunch and learns, coffee mornings and meetups. Life and health assurance Electric Vehicle Scheme Established Recognition Award System Great Parental Benefits Diversity and Inclusion network Pension scheme Community projects and volunteer days Refer a friend bonus Campus Benefits: On-site free parking Open plan modern offices Quiet Spaces are also available Shuttle bus to and from the station Subsidised restaurant Games room and chill out zone Annual Hackathon & Deep Racer Events Social activities, regular social events through our social group Xtra, including a summer BBQ, competitions, bowling, go-karting, football games, Winter party and much more! Car wash, barber, yoga classes, boot camp and massage services all on site Cycle to work scheme Shower and dry rooms Diversity and inclusion We’re on a journey to keep innovating, that means welcoming new ideas and ways of thinking. CDL recognises that building a diverse workforce is critical to the success of our business. We strongly encourage applications from a diverse talent pool and welcome the opportunity to discuss flexibility requirements and workplace adjustments with all our applicants. Recruitment Agency Notice: CDL have a PSL in place, but haven't used them for over 3 years, therefore be advised that any unsolicited submission of candidate details—including but not limited to LinkedIn profiles, CVs, or resumes (whether redacted or unredacted)—will be considered freely given and unsolicited. As such, these submissions will not be subject to any fees, terms, or obligations on our part. Only candidate profiles that have been formally discussed with and approved by our Talent Acquisition (TA) team prior to submission AND submitted by agencies on our Preferred Supplier List (PSL) operating under agreed terms are authorised to submit candidates. Any submissions from non-PSL agencies, or those made outside of agreed processes, will be deemed non-compliant and will not be eligible for any fees or consideration.