Lead Test Engineer

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Shape the Future of HMRC's Technology Platforms About HMRC Almost every individual and business in the UK is a direct customer of HMRC, as we collect the money that pays for the UK's public services and gives people who need it vital financial support. Over recent and coming years, our work never has been, nor will be, more critical as we rebuild and secure our nation's future. With these demands in mind, and as one of the largest and most digitally focussed organisations in the UK, sits the Chief Engineering and Platform Office.

About CEPO The Chief Engineering and Platform Office (CEPO) is leading HMRC's technology transformation - simplifying systems, modernising IT delivery, and creating a future-ready digital landscape. Our mission is to reduce complexity by consolidating applications and adopting scalable, service-based solutions from trusted commercial partners. As the strategic authority for platform provision, CEPO ensures HMRC's business groups, products, and services are supported by robust, secure, and innovative infrastructure. We set the direction, lead governance, and guarantee that every live service meets the highest standards - enabling efficient, reliable, and user-focused digital experiences for millions of customers.

Vacancy Location This vacancy is available in any of the below locations. Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds, London (Stratford), Newcastle, Telford, Worthing.

Job Description In this role, you will work across multiple products and platforms, providing strategic test leadership, supporting delivery teams, and influencing senior stakeholders to embed best practice and continuous improvement. As a Lead Test Engineer, you will play a strategic role in shaping and embedding consistent testing best practices across HMRC's complex digital ecosystem.

Your Responsibilities Will Include Leadership & Collaboration Lead, coach, and mentor test engineers across programmes, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and professional development. Collaborate with product, platform, and delivery teams to ensure testing is integrated early and effectively within agile workflows. Influence and engage with senior stakeholders across HMRC and supplier organisations to drive quality outcomes.

Test Strategy & Implementation Define and implement risk-based, shift-left testing strategies across diverse platforms and services. Ensure testing approaches align with business priorities, technical architecture, and delivery timelines. Promote consistent standards and practices across internal teams and third party suppliers.

Technical Excellence & Problem Solving Apply advanced testing techniques to solve complex technical challenges and improve delivery confidence. Provide expert guidance on functional, non-functional, and automation testing, including performance, security, and accessibility. Identify and drive opportunities for innovation and efficiency in testing processes.

Tooling & Governance Evaluate, implement, and optimise test tooling, including AI-assisted solutions, to support continuous integration and delivery. Establish governance frameworks for supplier-led testing activities, ensuring alignment with HMRC standards and compliance requirements. Support tooling integration with platforms and services.

Quality Assurance & Risk Management Ensure quality is built in from the outset by validating requirements and test coverage across the lifecycle. Lead retrospectives and continuous improvement initiatives to enhance test effectiveness and reduce delivery risk. Produce clear, actionable reports and insights to inform decision-making and assurance activities.

Person specification We're looking for a disciplined and technically strong test leader with deep experience in platform engineering and modern automation practices. You'll bring hands-on expertise across test automation, CI/CD and cloud-based services, enabling you to shape testing approaches that support fast, reliable and secure delivery. You'll confidently guide teams and influence engineering decisions, ensuring testing is embedded early and aligned with DevOps and shift-left principles. You must be comfortable engaging with stakeholders at all levels, translating complex technical issues into clear insights that drive quality outcomes across a multi-team, multi-supplier environment. You'll be passionate about good testing practice, proactive in identifying risks, and motivated to coach others in automation, tooling and continuous improvement. Your leadership will help shape the future direction of testing across our platform ecosystem by working closely with product and service owners.

Essential Criteria Shapes and influences strategic testing direction by proactively identifying issues, challenging assumptions and collaborating across organisational boundaries, communicating with clarity to guide teams and present recommendations persuasively. Leads complex, multi-team testing initiatives across diverse platforms and suppliers, prioritising effectively within fast-paced Agile environments. Applies strong analytical and risk-based decision-making, using data, metrics and structured problem-solving to balance quality, risk and delivery. Demonstrates significant hands-on technical expertise in automation, security and accessibility testing, CI/CD, cloud technologies and modern tooling (e.g. Python, Scala, Selenium, Playwright, Gatling, ZAP, AXE, Docker, Jenkins, AWS, Jira, Confluence). Champions DevOps and shift-left principles, designing robust test strategies for complex platform ecosystems while coaching others and promoting continuous improvement.

Behaviours We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process: Communicating and Influencing Making Effective Decisions Changing and Improving

Benefits Alongside your salary of £58,541, HM Revenue and Customs contributes £16,959 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides. HMRC operates both Flexible and Hybrid Working policies, allowing you to balance your work and personal commitments. We welcome applications from those who need to work a more flexible arrangement and will agree to requests where possible, considering our operational and customer service needs. We offer a generous leave allowance, starting at 25 days and increasing by a day for every year of qualifying service up to a maximum of 30 days. Pension - We make contributions to our colleagues' Alpha pension equal to at least 28.97% of their salary. Family friendly policies. Personal support. Coaching and development.

To find out more about HMRC benefits and find out what it's really like to work for HMRC hear from our insiders or visit Thinking of joining the Civil Service Things you need to know Artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience.

How To Apply As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide the following: A name-blind CV including your job history and previous experiences. A 750-word Personal Statement. Your Personal Statement should be used to describe how your skills and experience would be suitable for the advertised role, making reference to the Essential Criteria and Person Specification outlined in the advert. Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

Sift In the event of a large number of applications being received, an initial sift may be held on your Personal Statement. At full sift your CV and Personal Statement will be assessed, with the successful candidates being invited to interview. We may also raise the score required at any stage of the process if we receive a high number of applications.

Interview During the panel interview, your experience will be assessed and you will be asked behaviour-based questions to explore in detail what you are capable of. Interviews will take place via video link. Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.

Hybrid working at HMRC HMRC is an office-based organisation, and colleagues are expected to spend 60% of their working time in the office. Our offices provide opportunity for interaction, collaboration which aids learning and development and a sense of community. Where the role allows it, and where the home environment is suitable, colleagues can work from home for up to 2 days a week, averaged over a calendar month (or a proportionate amount of time for colleagues who work less than full time).

Reasonable Adjustments We want to make sure no one is put at a disadvantage during our recruitment process. To assist you with this, we will reduce or remove any barriers where possible and provide additional support where appropriate.

Security Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Transitional Sites Information If your location preference is for one of the following sites, it's important to note that these are not long-term sites for HMRC and we will require you to move to a new building in the future, subject to our location strategy and the applicable employee policies at that time. These Sites Are Benton Park View, Newcastle - moving to Pilgrims Quarter, Newcastle Telford Plaza, Telford - moving to Parkside Court, Telford You will be given more information about what this means at the job offer stage.

Recruitment team Email : unitybusinessservicesrecruitmentresults@hmrc.gov.uk