Lead QA Engineer

Aker Systems was founded in 2017 by a team of experienced technology professionals who recognised an opportunity to provide highly secure enterprise data platforms to large organisations. We build and operate ground-breaking, ultra-secure, high performance, cloud-based data infrastructure for the enterprise. Our proprietary technology solutions drive performance and reduce costs while helping our clients to improve the management and sharing of data across their organisations.

In 2024, Aker Systems won the Breakthrough Culture Awards highlighting growth companies putting culture first. In 2020 Aker Systems was recognised as a 'One to Watch' on the Sunday Times Tech Track. The Company was also recognised at the Thames Valley Tech Awards 2020; winning the Thames Valley Tech Company of the year, the Emerging Tech Company and High Growth Tech Business categories. We encourage people of all different backgrounds and identities to apply. We are committed to maintaining an inclusive, and supportive place for you to do your very best work.

A UK Government Security Check (SC) clearance is required for this role. If you don't hold SC clearance, we will support you to apply assuming you have lived and worked in the UK for a minimum of 5 years.
We are seeking a highly experienced
Lead QA Engineer
to spearhead quality assurance initiatives across our agile delivery teams. You will be responsible for defining and executing the overall testing strategy, ensuring rigorous QA practices across all phases of software delivery. This role demands strong leadership, technical proficiency, and a collaborative mindset to work across teams and stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities:

• Own the QA strategy and ensure robust test planning, execution, and reporting across all phases of delivery.
• Lead and mentor QA engineers, establishing best practices in both manual and automated testing.
• Collaborate with business analysts, developers, and product owners to define acceptance criteria and translate business requirements into comprehensive test plans and scenarios.
• Design, implement, and maintain test automation frameworks, with a focus on CI/CD integration (e.g., GitLab, Jenkins, Drone).
• Plan and execute functional and non-functional testing including performance, security, and regression testing.
• Ensure quality gates are met before software is released into production.
• Analyse complex data flows and verify data quality in ETL/data pipeline environments.
• Act as the primary point of contact for all testing-related matters, including risk and issue reporting, and stakeholder communication.
• Review and optimize existing QA processes, tools, and documentation.
• Ensure compliance with quality standards, policies, and governance procedures.

Skills & Experience Required:

• Proven experience in leading QA efforts in complex, data-centric environments (including data migration, ETL, and streaming platforms).
• Expertise in backend testing, preferably in Linux-based environments.
• Strong understanding of Kafka and Docker from a QA standpoint.
• Proficiency with testing tools and frameworks such as Selenium, FitNesse, SoapUI, Cucumber, and performance testing tools (e.g., LoadRunner).
• Automation experience using Python, Shell Scripting, Java, MySQL, or Perl.
• Solid knowledge of BDD/TDD methodologies and hands-on experience using tools like Cucumber and Gherkin.
• Hands-on experience with Agile management tools such as Jira and build tools like Maven.
• Demonstrated ability to design test strategies for cloud-based applications (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Excellent analytical skills to evaluate test outcomes and trace defects to root causes.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills, with the ability to articulate testing status, risks, and issues to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Desirable:

• Experience developing or maintaining end-to-end automation frameworks integrated with CI/CD pipelines.
• Familiarity with security and compliance testing in government or highly regulated environments.

Aker Systems Attributes

At Aker we work as a team; we are collaborative, hardworking, open, and delivery obsessed. There is no blame culture here: try things, and take responsibility for the outcomes. You are always part of the wider Aker. We help our colleagues and take pride in successfully achieving difficult tasks. We run towards problems and help to solve them. Communicate always, do so accurately and in a timely fashion.

In return, we offer a competitive salary, 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, company paid medical insurance and life assurance, pension scheme, annual training allowance, wellbeing allowance, virtual GP, Employee Assistance plan and more.

Equal Opportunities

Aker Systems fosters a diverse environment that encourages openness in its communications and is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, age, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, disability, veteran status or other personal characteristics. We embrace differences of opinion and diversity because they help challenge us and find new groundbreaking technical solutions.