AMS PSR

On behalf of DWP, we are looking for a Senior Test Engineer for a 12 month (Inside IR35) contract based hybrid in Blackpool or Manchester.

Core Purpose

Join DWP’s Digital Payment Services team on a major, multi-year transformation programme modernising one of the UK’s largest and most critical payment platforms. As the UK’s biggest payer, supporting over 22 million citizens and processing approximately £230 billion in payments annually, this programme is re-platforming core systems to improve resilience, scalability and future innovation across government services.

As a Senior Test Engineer, you will play a key role within an Agile delivery team, leading testing activity across applications within AME Payments, working across primarily JavaScript-based projects. You will take ownership of automation strategy while mentoring and supporting a small team of Test Engineers, contributing to the reliability and performance of critical citizen-facing services.

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

• Lead testing across applications supporting critical citizen payment services.
• Design, build and scale automated test frameworks and suites.
• Define test strategy and coverage using a risk-based approach.
• Identify, manage and drive resolution of defects impacting delivery.
• Provide mentoring and coaching to junior Test Engineers (team of ~3–4).
• Collaborate across engineering and delivery teams within the SDLC.
• Ensure quality standards covering performance, security, accessibility and reliability.
• Contribute to continuous improvement of testing practices and automation capability.

Essential:

• Strong background in automation testing with hands-on delivery experience
• Experience of testing in Node.js / JavaScript using WebDriver and Cucumber (Node.js / JavaScript as the language used to write tests as opposed to just testing Node applications)
• Hands-on experience with Selenium WebDriver and Cucumber (BDD)
• Proven experience mentoring or coaching testers / engineers
• Experience defining test strategy, frameworks and best practices
• Experience working in multi-disciplinary Agile teams
• Experience taking ownership of testing within Agile delivery teams

Desirable:

• Experience with tools such as Pactum, Cypress, K6, REST API testing
• Exposure to event-driven architectures (e.g. Kafka, MongoDB)
• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines and test packs within pipelines
• Experience with AWS and Terraform

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".