Senior Test Engineer at Department for Work & Pensions, UK Office/Remote, 12 Months, £Contract Rate

About the Role

We are seeking a Senior Test Engineer to join a newly formed team within a large scale DWP programme. The role will focus on ensuring the quality, security and performance of services supporting identity, authentication, authorisation and access management, while driving test automation and quality engineering practices across Agile delivery teams.

As a Senior Test Engineer your main responsibilities will be to:

• Test Strategy & Planning: Define and implement a comprehensive testing strategy for microservices or APIs
• Automation: Develop and maintain automated test scripts using Cucumber for integration with continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines.
• Collaboration: Work closely with developers, QA engineers, and product managers in an Agile environment to identify issues.
• Security & Identity Testing: Define and execute testing activities for authentication, authorisation and identity management services, ensuring adherence to security best practices.
• Analysis & Reporting: Analyse test results, identify functional & nonfunctional issues, and provide recommendations.
• Tooling & Frameworks: Evaluate and recommend new tools, frameworks, and methodologies to enhance testing efficiency and effectiveness.
• Mentorship: Provide guidance and mentorship to junior test engineers, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and knowledge sharing.

Essential:

• Demonstrable experience in software testing, with a focus on test automation, manual testing, API testing and quality engineering.
• TypeScript/Java: Proficient in TypeScript/Java, with the ability to write and maintain test automation scripts.
• Experience with Node.js frameworks such as Playwright or Cypress or other Node.js automation frameworks in JavaScript.
• Cucumber: Solid experience with Cucumber and BDD (Behaviour-Driven Development) practices.
• Proven experience working in Agile/Scrum environments, collaborating effectively with cross-functional teams.
• CI/CD: Experience integrating performance tests into CI/CD pipelines, using tools like Jenkins, GitLab, or similar.
• A good working knowledge of non-functional testing including performance, accessibility and security testing.
• Cloud & monitoring tools: AWS, Grafana and Splunk.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving and communication skills, with the ability to diagnose complex testing issues and clearly articulate solutions to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Security Clearance: Candidates must be eligible to obtain SC clearance. Active SC clearance is desirable but not essential.

Desirable:

• Knowledge of security testing principles and standards such as OWASP, OAuth or OpenID Connect (OIDC) would be advantageous.
• Experience working with MongoDB.

Please be aware that this role can only be worked within the UK and not Overseas.

Disability Confident 

As a member of the Disability Confident Scheme, DWP guarantees to interview all candidates who have a disability and who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of candidates who have a disability who meet all the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. This scheme encourages candidates with a disability and/or neurodivergence to apply. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

Armed Forces Covenant

DWP guarantees to interview veterans or spouses / partners of military personnel who meet all the essential criteria for the vacancy. In cases where we have a high volume of ex-military candidates / military spouses or partners, who meet all of the essential criteria, we will interview the best candidates from within that group. In exceptional circumstances, we may also need to apply the desirable criteria in our shortlisting process which may include holding active security clearance.

In applying for this role, you acknowledge the following this role falls in scope of the Off Payroll Working in the Public Sector legislation. Any rates of payment quoted will reflect the gross rate per day for the assignment and will be subject to appropriate taxes and statutory costs. As such the payment to the intermediary and your income resulting from this contract will be different.