Lead Software Development Engineer in Test, (SDET)

On behalf of DWP, we are looking for a Lead Software Development Engineer in Test, (SDET), for a 12 Month (Inside IR35) hybrid contract based up to 3 days per week in Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham or Newcastle. Note: SC Clearance is an essential requirement for this role, as a minimum you must be willing & eligible to undergo checks. Please note, due to the exceptional requirements of this position, (and speed at which we require a postholder in situ), preference may be given to candidates who meet all of the essential criteria and hold active security clearance

As a Lead SDET you will define and implement the strategy for build automation test solutions that help to assure the quality of products that make up DWPs digital services providing leadership, guidance and technical expertise to the test engineering teams.

• set direction for your service/capability and teams that is in line with overarching strategy (which you have the ability to influence);
• ensure that your teams work aligns to standards;
• have a clear focus on delivering quality, assured and secure services;
• ensure that you team follow best practice;
• be aware of and assess impact of any change that you are making;
• have an outward facing viewpoint, understanding where your team and products fit into the bigger picture.

Personal Specification

• Have experience in designing and implementing test strategy for distributed microservices from Monolith service across multiple teams
• Experience in business context / domain driven testing approach for java spring boot based application or non JVM based application
• Experience in contract testing and component testing such as API, message based asynchronous testing such as Kafka or similar technology
• Experience in non-relational database i.e. MongoDB or similar
• Strong technical automation skills with the ability to write well-structured reusable maintainable tests and test utilities (Java or TS/JS preferred).
• Have experience in non-functional experience such as performance testing (Gatling, K6) and accessibility testing
• Have experience in CI/CD pipeline Engineering Tools and Technologies
• Cloud: AWS (primary)
• Test Frameworks: Serenity BDD (Selenium + RestAssured), Playwright,
• Other tools: Spring Cloud Contract, Pactflow, Kafka, MongoDB, Browserstack
• DevOps: Gitlab, GitHub, Jenkins, Docker
• Performance testing - Gatling, K6
• Observability and Monitoring - Splunk, Grafana, Prometheus.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.

Disability Confident

As a member of the Disability Confident Scheme, DWP guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of candidates who have a disability who meet all the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. This scheme encourages candidates with a disability and/or neurodivergence to apply.

Armed Forces Covenant

DWP guarantees to interview veterans or spouses / partners of military personnel who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of ex-military candidates / military spouses or partners, who meet all of the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

In applying for this role, you acknowledge the following "this role falls in scope of the Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates of payment quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such the payment to the intermediary and your income resulting from this contract will be different".