Senior QA & Test Automation Engineer

• We are seeking an experienced Senior QA & Test Automation Engineer to support the delivery of secure, business-critical digital services within a complex, regulated technology environment.
• The successful candidate will take ownership of test strategy, automated API and integration testing, contract validation and resilience testing, ensuring the service meets its functional, technical and contractual requirements.
• Working within a modern technology environment incorporating AWS, Kafka, Keycloak, Angular, Spring Boot and AWS Lambda, you will collaborate closely with software engineers, architects and delivery stakeholders to validate system behaviour, identify defects and provide robust evidence to support production releases.
• A particular focus will be placed on validating failure scenarios, service integrations, message processing and system resilience., * Develop and maintain test strategies, test plans and test data, ensuring comprehensive coverage of functional and technical requirements.
• Design, develop and execute automated tests using Java, REST Assured, Postman or equivalent frameworks.
• Perform API contract testing, validating signatures, replay windows, HTTP 409 conflicts, duplicate handling and compliance with defined specifications.
• Develop automated end-to-end tests using simulated external endpoints and downstream systems.
• Test Kafka messaging, event-driven integrations and distributed microservices, ensuring reliable processing and error handling.
• Conduct failure and resilience testing, including Kafka outages, external service timeouts and database failover.
• Investigate defects, support root cause analysis and coordinate resolution with development teams.
• Produce clear, auditable test evidence, defect reports and documentation to support release sign-off.
• Collaborate with developers, DevOps engineers and stakeholders to integrate automated testing into CI/CD pipelines and improve overall software quality.
• Collaborate with developers, DevOps engineers and technical stakeholders throughout the software delivery lifecycle.
• Contribute to automated testing within CI/CD pipelines and promote continuous improvement in testing practices.

• Proven commercial experience as a Senior QA Engineer, Test Automation Engineer or SDET.
• Strong hands-on Java test automation experience, including developing and maintaining automated test suites.
• API testing experience using REST Assured, Postman or equivalent tools.
• Practical Kafka testing experience, including validation of event-driven integrations and message processing.
• Experience designing and executing integration, end-to-end and negative-path tests.
• Ability to validate API contracts, response codes, authentication behaviour and error-handling scenarios.
• Experience testing distributed applications and identifying issues across interconnected services.
• Understanding of failure scenarios, resilience testing and recovery behaviour.
• Strong experience with defect identification, investigation, triage and reporting.
• Ability to produce structured, traceable and auditable test evidence suitable for regulated environments.
• Strong communication skills and experience working alongside multidisciplinary engineering teams.

Desirable Skills & Experience:

• Experience working within AWS cloud environments, including AWS Lambda.
• Familiarity with Java/Spring Boot applications and microservices architectures.
• Experience testing authentication and authorisation systems involving Keycloak, OAuth 2.0 or OpenID Connect.
• Understanding of Angular-based Front End applications.
• Experience with contract testing tools such as Pact or equivalent frameworks.
• Familiarity with service virtualisation, mock services and simulated external integrations.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, Docker and automated test execution.
• Previous experience working within Central Government, Defence, financial services or other regulated environments.
• Experience with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and/or .NET technologies.
• Understanding of Agile delivery practices and modern software engineering methodologies.

At Lucid, we celebrate difference and value diverse perspectives, underpinned by our values ‘Honesty, Integrity and Pragmatism’. We are proud to provide equal opportunities in line with our Diversity and Inclusion policy and welcome applications from all suitably qualified or experienced people, regardless of personal characteristics. If you have a disability or health condition and seek support throughout the recruitment process, please do not hesitate to contact us via the details below