QA Engineer

About Us
Halfords is quickly becoming a digital services business. In addition to being a leading UK retailer, they are now working with Avayler to develop a new platform that enables businesses to deliver their complex services to customers through an end-to-end digital solution. The platform is deployed throughout Halfords stores, garages and their mobile business.  The platform has now been taken to market to enable other businesses in our sector and other industries globally to deliver market leading service delivery and an unrivalled customer experience. This SaaS business is called Avayler ).

About Avayler
At Avayler when we talk about growth, we don't just mean your career trajectory. Growth to us means creating opportunities for employees to be challenged, take ownership over initiatives and feeling safe to try new things. We are passionate about creating a culture where your progression is a unique experience, with you in driver's seat and being part of a winning team. As the leading global Garage Management and Mobile Van software platform, we help customers become operationally efficient and compliant through our advanced technology. We were born in 2020 and whilst we are a division of Halfords, the No 1 provider of motoring and cycling products, we are a stand-alone entity. At Avayler, we truly are striving to become a global company, targeting both the USA and European markets and we are scaling our business at a pace.

The role
As a QA Engineer at Avayler, you'll play a key role in ensuring the quality, reliability, and performance of our global SaaS platform. You'll work as part of an eight-strong QA team, testing everything from new features to full releases making sure every product works exactly as expected before it reaches our customers. You'll be involved throughout the sprint cycle, testing tickets as they're ready, finding bugs, and validating acceptance criteria. It's a hands-on role where your testing helps shape how thousands of users experience our software every day.

You'll bring strong manual testing experience, with solid technical grounding across API and automation testing using Cypress. You're comfortable working in Agile, two-week sprints and have a real eye for detail, pushing every feature to its limits to make sure nothing slips through the cracks. You'll have experience in non-functional areas like performance testing, as well as a good understanding of tools such as Postman, JMeter and Azure DevOps. Resilient, methodical and curious, you thrive on problem-solving and take pride in delivering work that's truly right first time.

This is an opportunity to join a fast-growing tech business where quality is central to everything we do. You'll work mostly remotely, typically visiting the office once a quarter, and have the freedom to shape your own development with access to training, new tools, and dedicated learning time built into every sprint. With clear pathways to progress into Senior QA and Test Lead roles, this is a great chance to grow your career while contributing to a product that's used by automotive businesses worldwide.

Key Responsibilities

• Work within two-week Agile sprints, testing new tickets and features as they're developed to ensure they meet acceptance criteria.
• Carry out detailed manual testing across functional, regression, smoke, and UAT stages - identifying, documenting, and tracking defects through to resolution.
• Perform API testing using Postman, ensuring seamless integration across systems and services.
• Contribute to test automation efforts using Cypress, maintaining and expanding automated test suites.
• Conduct non-functional testing, including performance and load testing, using tools such as JMeter.
• Collaborate closely with developers, product managers, and UX teams to review requirements and shape test strategies.
• Provide clear, concise feedback on bugs and risks, helping the team make informed release decisions.
• Continuously improve QA processes, tooling, and frameworks to increase efficiency and reliability.
• Support and mentor junior QA team members, sharing best practices and contributing to a culture of quality.
• Take ownership for quality at every stage of development ensuring that what we ship works first time, every time.

About You

• Proven experience in software testing, with a strong foundation in manual testing and solid exposure to automation.
• Experienced in API testing using tools such as Postman, and familiar with automation frameworks like Cypress.
• Comfortable working in Agile environments, testing in short sprints and adapting quickly to changing priorities.
• Strong attention to detail with a knack for spotting edge cases and potential risks before they reach production.
• Confident communicator who can collaborate effectively across development, product, and UX teams.
• Skilled at balancing speed with quality - delivering thorough, reliable testing under tight deadlines.
• Familiar with non-functional testing (e.g. performance testing) and open to learning new tools and techniques.
• Resilient, proactive, and passionate about improving processes and the end-user experience.

Reward & Benefits

• A fair and competitive salary evaluated against market data, annual discretionary bonus scheme, pension, life assurance, 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays and enhanced family leave.
• Commitment and dedication to your ongoing personal and professional development. We help you to own and grow your potential so you can be at your best in your current role and to support your future career aspirations.
• We offer hybrid working with a blend of working in our Support Centre and from home.
• You will have access to a wealth of employee discounts across the Halfords suite of products and services.
• Wellbeing and inclusion are at the heart of our colleague experience. We offer resources and ongoing support to enhance your wellbeing at work and active Colleague Networks supporting inclusion initiatives across Halfords.

Not sure you meet all the criteria? We'd encourage you to take the wheel and apply anyway At Halfords we are committed to creating an inclusive workplace for our colleagues. We're an equal opportunities employer and proud to welcome applications from all backgrounds and embrace diversity within our one Halfords Family.