Automation Test Engineer

Summary: The Automation Test Engineer role involves working in a hybrid model with a leading banking client in London, focusing on Rest API testing in Java. The ideal candidate will have experience with CI/CD environments, TDD, BDD, and performance engineering. Responsibilities include implementing tests, improving pipeline health, and collaborating closely with developers. The position requires a hands-on approach to quality engineering within a financial services context.

Key Responsibilities:

• Hands-on experience with Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) environments.
• Experience working in TDD and BDD-driven teams, applying Red-Green-Refactor practices.
• Experience with pair programming and close collaboration with developers.
• Experience in performance engineering, supporting profiling and tuning to identify performance hotspots and prevent regressions early.
• Monitor and analyse p95/p99 latency trends to ensure performance stability and help identify regressions introduced by changes.
• Exposure to accessibility testing and usability considerations, ensuring inclusive and user-friendly experiences.
• Comfortable working in highly collaborative environments, where development and testing happen alongside the engineering community.
• Implement and maintain TDD-aligned unit tests, component/integration tests, and consumer-driven contract tests (PACT) for REST APIs and Kafka events.
• Curate a minimal, meaningful end-to-end (E2E) test suite for critical user journeys and actively eliminate flaky tests.
• Plan and execute exploratory testing using charters, and convert valuable, repeatable findings into automated tests.
• Monitor and continuously improve pipeline health (flakiness, execution time, stability) and overall test effectiveness.
• Apply systems thinking, a bias for small tests, strong facilitation skills, clear written communication, and pragmatic decision-making.
• Partner with product and engineering to convert requirements into clear, testable acceptance criteria and executable examples.
• Integrate security checks (SAST, dependency/SBOM) into CI pipelines and work with teams to drive remediation.
• Support operational readiness by helping maintain runbooks and observability standards.
• Coach engineers in XP practices (pairing, refactoring, trunk-based development) and foster a continuous learning culture.

Key Skills:

• Strong experience with Rest API testing in Java.
• Experience with CI/CD environments.
• Knowledge of TDD and BDD practices.
• Familiarity with performance engineering techniques.
• Experience with accessibility testing.
• Proficiency in Java testing tools such as JUnit 5, Mockito, AssertJ, and WireMock.
• Experience with BDD tools like Cucumber and Karate.
• Familiarity with frontend testing tools like Playwright and ReactJS testing library.
• Knowledge of contract testing using PACT.
• Experience with performance testing tools like k6 or Gatling.
• Proficiency in GitLab CI and feature flagging using LaunchDarkly.

Salary (Rate): undetermined

City: City of London

Country: UK

Working Arrangements: hybrid

IR35 Status: inside IR35

Seniority Level: undetermined

Industry: IT

Detailed Description From Employer:

Automation Test Engineer
Hybrid Working - London - 2 days a week on site.
Financial Services

Lorien's leading banking client is looking for a skilled Automation Test Engineer with strong experience of with Rest API testing in Java to join our London-based team.
The ideal candidate will have strong experience of working with CI/CD Environments, Rest API And Kafka Events.

This role is based in London.
This role will be Via Umbrella.
Working in a Hybrid Model of 2 days a week on site.

Experience & Ways of Working

• Hands-on experience with Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) environments.
• Experience working in TDD and BDD-driven teams, applying Red-Green-Refactor practices.
• Experience with pair programming and close collaboration with developers.
• Experience in performance engineering, supporting profiling and tuning to identify performance hotspots and prevent regressions early.
• Monitor and analyse p95/p99 latency trends to ensure performance stability and help identify regressions introduced by changes.
• Exposure to accessibility testing and usability considerations, ensuring inclusive and user-friendly experiences.
• Comfortable working in highly collaborative environments, where development and testing happen alongside the engineering community.

Quality Engineering Responsibilities

• Implement and maintain TDD-aligned unit tests, component/integration tests, and consumer-driven contract tests (PACT) for REST APIs and Kafka events.
• Curate a minimal, meaningful end-to-end (E2E) test suite for critical user journeys and actively eliminate flaky tests.
• Plan and execute exploratory testing using charters, and convert valuable, repeatable findings into automated tests.
• Monitor and continuously improve pipeline health (flakiness, execution time, stability) and overall test effectiveness.
• Apply systems thinking, a bias for small tests, strong facilitation skills, clear written communication, and pragmatic decision-making.
• Partner with product and engineering to convert requirements into clear, testable acceptance criteria and executable examples.
• Integrate security checks (SAST, dependency/SBOM) into CI pipelines and work with teams to drive remediation.
• Support operational readiness by helping maintain runbooks and observability standards.
• Coach engineers in XP practices (pairing, refactoring, trunk-based development) and foster a continuous learning culture.

Tools & Technologies:

Java Testing:

JUnit 5, Mockito, AssertJ, PIT (mutation testing), WireMock (where appropriate).

BDD:

Cucumber, Karate (behaviour-driven and API-focused testing).

Frontend Testing:

Playwright (thin end-to-end coverage) ReactJS testing library.

Contract Testing:

PACT (REST APIs and Kafka events), Pact Broker.

Performance Testing:

k6 or Gatling (performance smoke tests and baseline validation).

CI/CD & Delivery:

GitLab CI; feature flagging using LaunchDarkly.

Guidant, Carbon60, Lorien & SRG - The Impellam Group Portfolio are acting as an Employment Business in relation to this vacancy.