Lead Test Engineer - HMRC - G7

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Have you got strong test and quality assurance experience and thrive when working in a collaborative environment, building, and maintaining positive relationships? 

Do you have experience of working in a diverse team of differing responsibilities, and leading direction and test strategy in a large business function?  

We are looking for a strong leader who can focus on complex problem solving, provide technical understanding and support product and platform teams and influence the members of the Service Central organisation.  

You will also be part of a centralised community of testers and as a leader you will have the opportunity to participate in defining and rolling out best practice across the HMRC estate.
 
Within HMRC’s Chief Digital & Information Group (CDIO), specifically in the Service Central and Technical Services (SC&TS) team we exploit the ServiceNow platform capability to optimise user experience and build capability across our organisation. We deliver reliable, secure, and supportable solutions to around 76,000 colleagues across HMRC.    

Our teams are accountable for the support, management and development of platforms, tools and infrastructure that sit within Service Central eco-system. Our focus is on ensuring consistent and excellent customer experience. We work with hardworking, upbeat people who grow with the challenge of delivering transformation on a huge scale by working closely with other platform groups and their partners to bring IT systems and services together.  

Job description

As a Lead Test Engineer, you will implement a risk-based testing approach across agile, multi-disciplinary teams, ensuring best practices are embedded early and consistently. You will collaborate with delivery teams and customers, providing strategic direction on testing processes and acting as an authority for issue resolution. 

Key Responsibilities: 

• Team Leadership & Mentorship – Manage, coach, and mentor test engineers, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
• Test Strategy & Implementation – Lead testing efforts in complex platform environments (e.g., ServiceNow, SAP), ensuring robust standards for both internal and third-party solutions.
• Technical Expertise & Problem-Solving – Apply advanced test techniques, influence senior stakeholders, and identify opportunities for process improvements.
• Tooling & Governance – Assess, implement, and optimize test tools while establishing governance for supplier and third-party initiatives.
• Quality & Risk Management – Validate security, usability, and accessibility requirements, write test approaches, and drive continuous improvement through retrospectives.

Person specification

This role requires a strong, well rounded, disciplined, and dynamic individual with proven test management capabilities. The individual must be analytical to support the testers and developers providing strategic test direction. The person should have a demonstrable ability to work and report across all levels of stakeholders and third parties.  

You will:  

• Advise, design, and execute functional test cases. You can assess and peer-review the work of others. You can coach and mentor others. 
• You can design and execute non-functional test cases using standard testing techniques.
• Understand the hierarchy of test environments and the phases of testing as the product moves through levels of maturity to Production.  
• You can demonstrate a good working knowledge of different tools and techniques and can train others. You can advise others on testing techniques and frameworks. 
• You can analyse and review data to identify problems and opportunities and make informed recommendations in line with strategic business objectives. 
• You can communicate test approaches and make recommendations to influence senior stakeholders. 
• You can solve complex problems, applying logical reasoning. 
• Actively hold (or be willing to obtain) SC Clearance.

Essential Criteria:  

• You will need to demonstrate practical knowledge and experience of the following essential criteria:  
  Lead full lifecycle testing, including unit, functional, and end-to-end testing, ensuring quality throughout. 
• Establish and drive quality initiatives, selecting appropriate testing tools, methodologies, and approaches.
• Coordinate and schedule test activities across multiple teams, platforms, and complex environments.
• Produce quality-driven test reports and ensure functional and non-functional requirements are embedded in solutions.
• Communicate effectively to coach, collaborate, influence, and lead diverse teams while driving continuous improvement in testing practices.

Desirable Criteria:  

Ideally you will also have experience and understanding of:   

• Service Now and Automated Test Framework 
• Multiple platforms e.g. Client/Server / Web / Unix / VME etc.   
• A range of tools e.g. Zephyr, JIRA, SOAP UI, Selenium, Postman, JMeter, Cucumber.   
• CI/CD and relevant tools i.e. Ansible, Puppet, Chef, Jenkins.   
• Working within Agile/Scrum team. 
• Working knowledge of ITIL 4.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Making Effective Decisions
• Leadership
• Developing Self and Others