Overview

We are Hastings Direct, a digital insurance provider with ambitious plans to become the best and biggest in the UK market. Our CIO function leads innovation and ensures our technology supports our growth. We nurture a 4Cs culture—collaboration, creativity and continuous improvement—and the CIO team works on cutting-edge projects that enhance our digital presence and customer engagement. We provide insurance to nearly four million customers, and we’re excited about the opportunities ahead. If you’re excited about joining us and think you have some of what we are looking for, we’d love to hear from you.

Our CIO team values passionate individuals who are eager to make a difference and contribute to our success.

Job Title - Senior Test Automation Engineer at Hastings Direct

Responsibilities

• As a Senior Test Automation Engineer, you will be part of the Technology Engineering team within CIO, overseeing, defining, implementing, executing and maintaining adequate test scenarios including end to end traceability to ensure timely, high quality, defect free delivery of outcomes to the production environments.
• In an agile environment, you will be assigned to Scrum Teams and collaborate extensively with colleagues to identify acceptance criteria for both functional and non-functional requirements. By agreeing at which levels the testing should be executed and mapping tests into the system of record, you will ensure full traceability of tests.
• Using an Automation Only approach, you will aim to execute the majority of testing automatically, enabling early and frequent testing in support of a Zero Defect culture and ensuring work items meet the Definition of Done. You will update or support the test automation framework as needed.
• As the Senior Test Automation Engineer you will mentor junior colleagues and provide timely and accurate MI for your teams to Test Management.
• Work as an individual collaborator within your Scrum Teams alongside colleagues that cross multiple disciplines.
• Drive active participation and ensure all voices are heard in sprint ceremonies; proactively share updates and blockers in daily standups, estimate and commit in sprint planning, and contribute to KPI improvements in sprint retrospectives.

Qualifications

Essential

• Proven and substantial practical experience working in a Testing Automation role
• Extensive experience working in an agile environment
• Transformational leadership skills enabling influence on decisions and implementation of new processes and procedures in support of the company\'s vision
• Good mentoring skills to support direct reports in their ongoing development

Tools & Technologies

• Proficient knowledge of at least one agile methodology (e.g., Scrum, Kanban, SAFe). Familiar with backlog and test case management in a system of record such as Jira or Octane
• Excellent knowledge using declarative Gherkin to capture business rules, run as automated tests with Cucumber
• Comfortable with source control using GitHub
• Skilled in UI automation with Selenium & Selenium Grid, Playwright or Cypress
• Ability to implement tests against API either in code or via tools such as SoapUI, Postman
• Good understanding and experience using continuous integration platforms such as AzureDevOps or Jenkins (or equivalent)
• Ability to manipulate, create and search for test data across databases using SQL
• Guidewire Insurance Suite
• Application Domains (one or more of): Document templating and production systems; Distributed n-tiered architectures; Web services integration; Service oriented / API architectures; Operational reporting solutions

What we offer

Join us and you\'ll find a different way of doing things. We call it the 4Cs. We focus on getting it right for our colleagues, customers, company, and community. As one of our colleagues, you\'ll be helping to drive our growth, so in return, we\'ll give you all the support, training and development you need. Not to mention plenty of recognition and rewards, and the scope to voice your ideas and put them into practice.

Regrettably we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role

Benefits: in addition to a competitive salary and £5k car allowance you will also receive…

• Flexible working - flexible hybrid working approach
• Competitive bonus scheme - annual 4Cs performance bonus
• Physical wellbeing - private medical insurance (PMI) for Band 4 colleagues
• Financial wellbeing - life assurance (4x salary), income protection at no extra cost, and matched pension contributions up to 10%
• Mental wellbeing programme - Thrive mental health app, 24/7 colleague assistance programme, in-house mental health first aiders, support groups
• There\'s more - 27 days annual leave + bank holidays, with the option to buy or sell one of your weeks, health care cash back plans, dental plans, discounted health assessments, Cycle to work and tech schemes, discounted and free onsite facilities, social events throughout the year

Hastings Group is an equal opportunities employer which means we treat people fairly. We welcome applications from all suitably skilled persons regardless of their gender, age, race, disability, ethnic background, religion/belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment or marital/family status. Please also note that we have a thorough referencing process, which includes credit and criminal record checks.

Seniority level

• Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Full-time

Job function

• Information Technology

Industries

• Technology, Information and Internet