Quality Engineering (QE) Architect/Lead NEW

York, Yorkshire
Initialize IT

Quality Engineering (QE) Architect/Lead – York (2/3 days) – 12 months – £545

Role

QE Architect is the strategic and hands-on Quality Engineering leader responsible for defining, architecting, and governing the enterprise-wide quality engineering capability across the Tech Transformation portfolio. The role enables a product-led delivery model by embedding continuous testing, automation-first, shift-left quality practices, risk-based assurance, and flow engineering principles throughout the software development life cycle.

Experience & Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in Quality Engineering, Software Engineering or Test Automation.
• Minimum 5 years’ operating as QE Architect/Principal Quality Engineer or Enterprise QE Lead level.
• Proven experience designing and scaling enterprise automation frameworks.
• Demonstrable expertise implementing Quality Engineering capabilities across large transformation portfolios.
• Strong experience with cloud, APIs, enterprise integration and data platform testing.
• Experience supporting Agile, Product-led and DevOps delivery models.
• Experience implementing TDD, BDD and Continuous Testing practices.
• Experience within Financial Services, Insurance or highly regulated industries preferred.

Key Responsibilities

1. QE Strategy, Architecture & Transformation

• Define and maintain the Tech Transformation Quality Engineering Architecture and target-state quality operating model.
• Establish enterprise standards for automation, continuous testing, quality gates, test observability, and release assurance.
• Drive adoption of engineering-led quality practices aligned to DevOps and Flow Engineering principles.
• Design scalable QE frameworks that support Digital, Workbench, Data, AI and Integration platforms.
• Define and govern end-to-end integration testing to ensure seamless data flow, business process integrity, and operational reliability across core Policy, Claims, D365, Power Platform, API, and downstream enterprise systems
• Create reusable quality engineering assets, accelerators and reference architectures to increase delivery efficiency across programmes.
• Partner with Architecture, Engineering and Product leadership to embed quality from ideation through production.

2. Automation Architecture & Continuous Testing

• Architect and evolve enterprise automation frameworks covering UI, API, Data, Integration, AI and Non-Functional testing.
• Drive automation-first delivery ensuring automated validation is Embedded throughout CI/CD pipelines.
• Define testing strategies across the testing pyramid, ensuring automation is implemented at the most effective layer.
• Establish standards for:
  • UI automation
  • API automation
  • Contract testing
  • Data quality testing
  • Integration testing
  • Accessibility testing
  • Performance testing
  • Security testing
  • AI model validation
• Promote Test Driven Development (TDD), Behaviour Driven Development (BDD), Specification by Example and Shift-Left testing practices.
• Design quality engineering solutions supporting feature teams, platform teams and product squads.

3. AI-Led Quality Engineering

• Lead adoption of AI-assisted and Agentic Testing capabilities.
• Define enterprise standards for AI-generated test design, test automation generation, self-healing automation and intelligent defect analysis.
• Drive effective use of GitHub Copilot, Claude and future AI engineering assistants.
• Establish approaches for ML model validation, prompt testing, AI workflow assurance and responsible AI testing.
• Identify opportunities to improve QE productivity through AI-driven risk analysis and predictive quality insights.

4. Technology & Platform Quality Architecture

Own quality engineering strategy and architecture across:

Digital CX Platforms

• OutSystems

Business Applications

• Microsoft Dynamics 365
• Microsoft Power Platform

Data & Analytics Platforms

• GCP-based solutions
• SQL platforms
• AI product ecosystems
• Power BI

Integration Platforms

• Azure APIM
• Event-driven integrations

AI & Intelligent Products

• Underwriting Intelligence solutions
• ML-powered products
• Email Intake and Fraud/Coverage Assessment platforms

5. Engineering Excellence & Governance

• Define enterprise quality KPIs and engineering metrics.
• Establish quality governance processes supporting risk-based decision making.
• Define release readiness standards and quality gates.
• Provide independent assurance for high-risk and business-critical initiatives.
• Lead defect prevention strategies using root cause analysis and quality trend insights.
• Standardise reporting using Power BI, Allure, Azure DevOps dashboards.
• Ensure regulatory, audit and operational risk requirements are appropriately addressed.

6. Capability Building & Technical Leadership

• Act as the senior technical authority for Quality Engineering across the Tech Transformation portfolio.
• Coach and mentor QE Leads, SDETs, Automation Engineers and programme test teams.
• Develop engineering communities, standards and knowledge-sharing practices.
• Drive adoption of modern testing approaches across Product, Engineering and Delivery teams.
• Build internal capability and reduce dependency on external suppliers through coaching and framework reuse.
• Promote consistent engineering practices across all delivery teams.

Required Technical Expertise

Programming Languages

Deep hands-on expertise in:

• TypeScript, JavaScript, C#
• Python, PyTest, SQL

Strong understanding of:

• Object-oriented programming
• API development and testing
• Data engineering concepts
• Cloud-native architectures
• Microservices architectures

Automation & Testing Tools

UI Automation

• Playwright, BrowserStack, Applitools
• Cucumber/Reqnroll

API Automation

• RestAssured, Postman, Newman, RESTSharp

Email Services

• mailinator

Data Testing

• PyTest, SQL Validation, Databricks Notebooks, Prefect

Performance & NFR

• JMeter, k6, Accessibility Testing (JAWS), Security Testing (OWASP ZAP)

Delivery & DevOps

• Azure DevOps
• Azure Repos, Pipelines
• Jira, Xray

Reporting & Observability

• Power BI, Allure

AI Engineering

• GitHub Copilot
• Claude
• Agentic AI Testing Solutions