Job Vacancy Senior Test Lead - Project QA

Project QA Lead - Modernisation Programme
Telford

Inside IR35

We are seeking a highly experienced Project QA Lead to provide technical leadership and test management across a large-scale Modernisation Programme. This role requires deep knowledge of modern quality engineering practices, with the ability to govern, advise, and support delivery teams across all stages of the testing lifecycle.

The programme operates within a modern, cloud-native environment, and the Project QA Lead will need to be confident working with the following:

• Cloud & Platform: HCP (Kubernetes-based), currently deployed on AWS, with future migration options to Azure.

• Monitoring Tools: Kibana, Grafana, Splunk, PagerDuty (transitioning to Dynatrace in future).

• CI/CD: GitLab pipelines.

• Databases: Oracle RDS, SQL, MongoDB (limited use within CESA Futures).

• Languages & Frameworks: Java 21, Spring Boot / Spring Batch.

• Testing & Automation Tools: Playwright, WireMock, OWASP ZAP (SAST, DAST, SCA), Gatling.

As Project QA Lead, you will:

• Define and implement QA principles within your workstream, working closely with the Programme QA Lead.

• Collaborate with clients and stakeholders to establish automation patterns and repeatable test approaches aligned to programme requirements.

• Direct and coordinate delivery teams to adopt the QA strategy and assure the quality of test implementation across services.

• Manage QA activities across delivery teams, ensuring visibility, progress reporting, and adherence to strategy.

• Produce project-level QA deliverables, including test planning, review documentation, and completion reports.

• Lead risk mitigation and management related to testing.

• Provide hands-on QA support, offering coaching and guidance to delivery teams.

• Work collaboratively with the Programme QA Lead, Service QA Leads, and the Automation Lead to ensure consistent quality across the programme.

The Project QA Lead must understand the full breadth of testing practices, with the ability to validate developer activities, challenge approaches, and provide expert guidance in the following areas:

• Low-Level Tests (undertaken by developers):

  • Unit Testing

  • Component Testing

  • Component Integration Testing

• System Testing:

  • Functional code testing, including APIs, using harnesses and mocks to simulate external systems.

• System Integration Testing (SIT):

  • Overseeing testing across real endpoints (point-to-point data flow testing).

• Business Process Testing (BPT):

  • End-to-end testing of business scenarios and processes.

• Specialist Testing Areas:

  • Performance Verification Testing (PVT)

  • Security & Penetration Testing

  • Accessibility Testing

  • Operational Acceptance Testing (OAT)

  • Secure Development: SAST and DAST within the CI/CD pipeline, ensuring "Secure by Design" standards are met.

The QA Lead will also need to understand where and when these testing activities should occur, and when they can be shifted to another phase or run in parallel to optimise delivery.