Summary: The Lead QA Engineer will oversee the quality assurance function within a financial services context, ensuring high standards of reliability, accuracy, security, and compliance across the platform. This role requires a blend of hands-on testing expertise, strategic leadership, and domain knowledge in regulated environments. The successful candidate will lead a team of QA professionals and collaborate with various stakeholders to embed quality throughout the software development lifecycle. The position emphasizes both manual and automated testing methodologies tailored to complex financial workflows.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the QA function across multiple product lines and workstreams.
• Design, implement, and manage end-to-end test strategies including manual, automated, performance, and regression testing.
• Collaborate with developers, BAs, product owners, and DevOps to ensure quality is embedded across the SDLC.
• Own and evolve QA frameworks, tools, and best practices to drive efficiency and quality.
• Ensure test coverage for complex financial workflows, APIs, and third-party integrations.
• Support UAT, defect triage, and production validation activities.
• Build, mentor, and manage QA engineers to elevate team capability and performance.
• Ensure compliance with relevant financial regulations and data protection standards (eg FCA, GDPR, PCI DSS).
• Act as a quality advocate in Agile ceremonies and technical discussions.

Key Skills:

• 5+ years of QA experience with at least 2+ years in a lead or senior role.
• Strong background in financial services (eg, banking, trading, payments, insurance, investment platforms).
• Proven experience in both manual and automated testing across web and back-end services.
• Proficiency in test automation tools (eg, Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, REST-assured, etc.).
• Knowledge of BDD/TDD frameworks (eg, Cucumber, SpecFlow).
• Understanding of CI/CD pipelines and tools like Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, or similar.
• Solid grasp of SQL and database validation.
• Familiarity with regulatory and compliance testing in financial environments.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder engagement, and team leadership skills.

Salary (Rate): undetermined

City: undetermined

Country: UK

Working Arrangements: remote

IR35 Status: inside IR35

Seniority Level: undetermined

Industry: Finance