Contract Lead Automation Test Engineer
Financial Services
Location
Sheffield (Hybrid 3 days on-site)
Duration
12-month initial contract
IR35 Status
Inside IR35
We are recruiting for an experienced Lead Automation Test Engineer to join a major financial services client in Sheffield. This role will lead automation strategy, test delivery, and quality engineering across a high-profile programme. You will provide technical leadership to the test engineering team, define best practices, and drive high-quality automated solutions across complex cloud and on-prem environments.
Key Responsibilities
* Lead and mentor automation engineers, providing technical guidance, coaching, and oversight of automation activities.
* Develop, execute, and maintain automated test frameworks and scripts for web, API, database, and cloud-based applications.
* Create comprehensive test plans, test cases, test scenarios, test data, and associated documentation based on requirements and specifications.
* Select and recommend appropriate automation tools based on system architecture and project requirements.
* Define performance test strategies, covering scope, environments, risks, and resource planning.
* Integrate automated testing into CI / CD pipelines (GitLab / Jenkins) and support shift-left testing practices.
* Lead and coordinate SIT / OAT / UAT testing activities with technical and business stakeholders.
* Analyse design documents for testability and ensure requirements traceability across test assets.
* Accurately log, track, and report defects, attend triage sessions, and verify fixes.
* Provide continuous improvement recommendations across test processes, tooling, and automation capability.
* Stay current with emerging technologies and adapt automation approaches to evolving project needs.
Essential Skills & Experience
* Strong background in automation testing within financial services or complex enterprise environments.
* Proven experience developing automated test scripts with JavaScript.
* Hands‑on experience with automation tools such as Selenium WebDriver IO (WDIO), Cucumber, Selenium UI, and RestAssured for API testing.
* Strong manual testing experience alongside automation capability.
* Experience with cloud testing across AWS, Azure, GCP or similar platforms.
* Skilled in Jenkins pipeline creation, CI / CD integration, and automated reporting.
* Web UI testing and database comparison testing expertise.
* Experience with JIRA, Xephyr, and broader test management tools.
* API Testing, API Gateway testing, Batch / ETL testing.
* Experience with GitOps repositories and modern DevOps workflows.
* Excellent stakeholder engagement and communication skills, with the ability to lead and influence.
* Experience working in Agile and Waterfall delivery environments.
Desirable Experience
* Exposure to Identity & Access Management (IAM) programmes.
* Experience with SailPoint IdentityIQ, identity warehousing, SCIM, REST API, LDAP, OIDC, CSV ingestion.
* Testing experience with Graph Database Management Systems (GDBMS).
* Experience with ServiceNow, Active Directory, AWS / Azure integrations.
* Testing functions and decision points as code, such as Policy-as-Code.
* Pub / Sub and MQ systems testing.
* GCP cloud testing methodologies.
* SaaS platform testing.
* Process improvement leadership establishing performance testing standards and governance.
* Skill sets across languages such as: Java, Cypher, Python, JavaScript, PHP, .NET, Go, SQL Server, MySQL.
* Experience with test tools such as QMetry, TestRail, Postman, Insomnia.
* BDD / TDD experience.
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