Senior Test Engineer - CO - G7

Cabinet Office Digital is a cross-government business unit within the Cabinet Office responsible for driving efficiencies and modernising the Civil Service.

COD brings together the core services that support civil servants: pensions, recruitment, back office transactional services and the platforms and services used by civil servants. Alongside this, COD has a real focus on value for money - firstly for the departments and organisations which use the services we deliver, and ultimately the taxpayer.

The role available sits within COD Platforms and Services Operations, responsible for the operation and modernisation of Civil Service digital and data platforms.

Our priorities include:

• Designing, building and operating the systems that underpin services that are essential to government, such as Civil Service Jobs (used by over 200 organisations) and Civil Service Learning (approx 560k users). 
• Driving forward Civil Service interoperability, which will enable Civil Servants to work effectively across organisational boundaries, in a more efficient and seamless manner. 
• Providing expert technology advice and guidance to support the creation of five shared services platforms as part of the Shared Services Strategy. 
• Providing services which meet user needs and drive improved user experience so that the Civil Service operates more efficiently and effectively.

As and when our priorities change, we may need to rely on colleagues' expertise to support the delivery of alternative projects and programmes. 

Job description

The Civil Service Learning website and platform is a digital learning platform that is used across Government to build capability, grow careers and support the objectives of government departments and professional groups. It provides a single, fit-for-purpose learning service, providing access to the training and learning opportunities required by a Brilliant Civil Service. Every feature of the new service has been extensively researched with users to ensure the best possible experience for the learner.

What will the successful candidate be doing?

As a Senior Test Engineer, your primary responsibility will be to assure the quality of the product using various tools and techniques. You will be working alongside Developers, Business Analysts and other team members both within the team and the wider community to deliver consistent solutions and strategies.

You will build automation test solutions to provide faster feedback, assure the quality of products that make up our digital services and contribute towards their design.

You will be responsible for testing all areas of the product including but not limited to functional and non-functional business requirements, performance, security and accessibility.

You will be willing to challenge current processes and help improve the ways of working. You will also identify tooling that will drive innovation and constant improvement of both testing and products. 

Main Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with Business Analysts, Developers, Product Managers, Delivery Managers and Release managers for effective delivery of the service through exploratory manual and automated testing. 
• Build and deliver comprehensive, robust and reliable automated test frameworks and automation suites to provide full coverage of business requirements. 
• Regularly communicate with other teams and share technical resources, knowledge and lessons learned. 
• Ensure that usability, accessibility, security, stability and capacity are embedded in the development of services. 
• Promote QA best practices, tools and techniques. 
• Take responsibility for designing, building and maintaining an effective test infrastructure. 
• Develop and maintain knowledge of the latest technical test tools and where it would be beneficial to apply them. 
• Undertake reviews of the test suite and update the code base to reflect current best practices and reduce technical debt. 
• Undertake the design, and build the technical setup and working methods for continuous integration, delivery and deployment practices. 
• Make effective decisions in order to manage a well assured service. 
• Support the Release Assurance process during regular release cycles. 

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Experience of working in a complex, multi-disciplinary environment, delivering test products and cycles within specific time-scales and engaging with multiple senior stakeholders.
• Experience of working in a multi-disciplinary Agile Team and understanding of Agile delivery principles, methodology and tools. 
• Agile Methodologies - with experience of BDD (Behaviour Driven Development) and TDD (Test Driven Development) processes and an understanding of the key principles to develop a modern standards approach to testing. 
• Experience in the development and maintenance of automated test suites and tools including Java, Selenium, Azure DevOps, Azure Load Testing, Cucumber, Gherkin, JMeter and MySQL and Postman. 
• Experience of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery – Methodology and tools (Jenkins, Git). 
• An understanding of the test phases and standards associated with Performance Testing, Accessibility Testing, Security Testing and Compatibility Testing.

Additional information:

A minimum 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace. Although requirements to attend other locations for official business will also count towards this level of attendance.

 Behaviours

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

• Changing and Improving
• Making Effective Decisions
• Managing a Quality Service