Software Engineer in Test

Head of Software Development Talent Solutions - djr - Building the best Engineering and Business Intelligence teams across the UK and the USA.

Software Engineer in Test – £70,000 + 10% Bonus

Hybrid – 2 days per week on-site in Manchester

Permanent

About the Role

Our client is scaling several modern digital platforms and is looking for a highly technical Software Engineer in Test (SDET) to strengthen automation, quality engineering and delivery across multiple product teams. This is not a traditional QA role — it is a hands‑on engineering position where you will design automated solutions, build test frameworks, work closely with developers, and contribute directly to the quality and stability of services used at scale. You will be expected to think like an engineer, work with clean, maintainable code, and provide technical input into testing strategy and architecture.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and maintain scalable automated test frameworks, with a strong focus on API, integration and microservices testing.
• Write clean, production‑quality test code in C# (strong preference) or another modern programming language (Java, TypeScript, Python).
• Analyse complex scenarios, transform API data programmatically, and validate end‑to‑end workflows.
• Implement reusable design patterns, utilities and abstraction layers for test automation.
• Enhance quality gates within CI/CD pipelines and support continuous testing practices.
• Work collaboratively with software engineers to debug issues, improve reliability and refine testability.
• Perform exploratory and risk‑based functional testing where needed.
• Participate in technical design discussions, providing input on architecture, automation patterns and quality impact.
• Complete a second‑stage technical challenge involving API automation, framework structure and code review discussions.

Core Skills & Experience

• Strong experience as a Software Engineer in Test / SDET within modern Agile product teams.
• Solid programming ability in C# (preferred), including writing reusable automation code, applying OOP principles and structuring maintainable test suites.
• Demonstrable experience building API automation from scratch using libraries such as RestSharp, HttpClient, Playwright API, or similar frameworks.
• Skilled in working with REST APIs, microservices and distributed systems.
• Confident applying patterns such as Page/Service Objects, builders, and modular test design.
• Familiar with mocking, data‑driven testing and handling dynamic or complex API payloads.
• Proficient with version control (Git) and CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins).
• Comfortable reviewing logs, debugging failures and collaborating closely with developers.
• Able to clearly explain technical choices, design decisions and automation strategy during interviews.
• Experience with Azure cloud environments.
• Familiarity with event‑driven architectures or messaging platforms.
• Exposure to containerised test execution (Docker).
• Experience mentoring other engineers or championing automation initiatives.

Seniority Level

Mid‑Senior level

Employment Type

Full‑time