As a Senior Test Engineer you will help define and implement the strategy for building automation test solutions that help to assure the quality of products that make up DWPs digital services. You will also: Lead Test Engineers across several teams, providing technical leadership and guidance. Drive collaboration across engineers of different roles both within your team and the wider teams to solve problems and enable consistent solutions and strategies. Build automation test solutions that help to assure the quality of our products, contribute towards their design, and look for way to improve the value automation adds. Ensure that usability, accessibility, security, stability, and capacity are embedded in the development of services. Drive teams to take a risk based, context driven approach to agile testing assessing and understanding the risks to drive decisions. Lead the adoptions of Continuous Integration/Delivery pipelines to run a full range of tests against our products and assure our builds. Lead the traceability of testing, risks, defects, and report progress to appropriate stakeholders across several teams. Be willing to challenge assumptions and current processes to help us improve. Reusing and evolving our strategies and tooling. Drive the identification of tooling and solutions to aid constant improvements, ensuring we build the right product in the right way. Proactively share knowledge, solutions and support our internal communities along with mentoring, coaching, and supporting your peers. Contribute to discussions around the latest technology trends, tools and best practices within Testing. Person specification When giving details in your CV you should highlight your experience in line with essential criteria below: Lead criterion: Experience of working in a complex, multidisciplinary environment, leading testing activities and engaging with multiple stakeholders. Experience in modern programming language preferably JAVA or JavaScript and aptitude to learn. Experience in building and maintaining API automation testing preferably Rest Assured or similar tools. Experience in building and maintaining UI automation testing preferably Selenium / Cypress or similar tools. Adaptable team player who can influence othersand has experience of shift left principles including CI/CD tools such as GitLab, Jenkins or similar tools. Experience of conducting and enabling non-functional testing such as Performance (preferably k6, gatling, JMeter or similar tools), Security, Compatibility and Accessibility. Experience working in agile environment and defect management tools like JIRA or similar. An initial sift will be conducted using the lead criterion stated above. Candidates who pass the initial sift will progress to a full sift. If you would like to learn more about the role, please contact richard.hanleydwp.gov.uk Benefits Alongside your salary of 55,557, Department for Work and Pensions contributes 16,094 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides. We also have a broad benefits package built around your work-life balance which includes: Working patterns to support work/life balance such as job sharing, term-time working, flexi-time and compressed hours. Generous annual leave at least 25 days on entry, increasing up to 30 days over time (prorata for part time employees), plus 9 days public and privilege leave. Support for financial wellbeing, including interest-free season ticket loans for travel, a cycle to work scheme and an employee discount scheme. Health and wellbeing support including our Employee Assistance Programme for specialist advice and counselling and the opportunity to join HASSRA a first-class programme of competitions, activities and benefits for its members (subscription payable monthly). Family friendly policies including enhanced maternity and shared parental leave pay after 1 years continuous service. Funded learning and development to support progress in your role and career. This includes industry recognised qualifications and accreditations, coaching, mentoring and talent development programmes. An inclusive and diverse environment with opportunities to join professional and interpersonal networks including Womens Network, National Race Network, National Disability Network (THRIVE) and many more. This job role may be suitable for hybrid working, which is where an employee works part of the week in their DWP office and part of the week from home. This is a voluntary, non-contractual arrangement and your office will be your contractual place of work. The number of days that anyone will be able to work at home will be determined primarily by business need but personal circumstances and other relevant circumstances will also be taken into account. If you are successful, any opportunities for hybrid working, including whether a hybrid working arrangement is suitable for you, will be discussed with you prior to you taking up your post. Salary Information The regional pay for this role is from 55,557 to 71,017. The maximum salary for the grade is 66,058, however a Digital Allowance of up to 4,959 per annum is available for exceptional candidates. Digital Allowance is non-salary, and non-pensionable, and is classed as a temporary allowance. It is reviewed annually where it could be retained, amended, or removed. The London pay for this role is 61,089 - 71,675. Our offer to successful candidates will be based on an assessment of your skills and experience as demonstrated at interview. Existing Civil Servants who secure a new role on lateral transfer should maintain their current salary. Existing Civil Servants who gain promotion may move to the bottom of the grade pay scale or 10% increase in salary whichever would be the greater. Things you need to know Selection process details Stage 1: Application Applications must include: 1. A completed Personal Details application form. 2. A curriculum vitae including education, professional qualifications and full employment history, giving details of key achievements in line with essential criteria listed in the Person Specification. When uploading your CV, do not include personal information or links to any webpages or profiles that identifies you. This means we can recruit based on your knowledge and skills, and not background, gender or ethnicity. Take out references to your name/title, age, sex, email address, postal address, telephone number or nationality/immigration status. When giving details of your redacted CV, you should therefore include details of the work and projects that you have been involved in, and your role therein. An initial sift will be conducted using the lead criterion stated above. Candidates who pass the initial sift will progress to a full sift. 3. Coding Test. Candidates who are successful at sift will be sent a coding test to complete remotely. The exercise will focus on the technical skills listed in the Essential Criteria in this advert. Full details will be sent to candidates when the exercise is issued. Candidates will have 7 days to complete the test from the date of receipt. For Hints and Tips on completing your application visit Applying for jobs at DWP Digital. Applications will be sifted at regular intervals from the date the posts are advertised. Please apply as soon as you can, do not wait until the end of the campaign. Important information Please attach your redacted CV as a separate additional document in either PDF or word format. If your CV contains any personal details your application may be withdrawn. We recognise that AI may be helpful when applying for this role, but it is important to use it in the right way. Read the DWP AI Candidate Guide to understand how you can make the best use of GenAI while ensuring your application remains authentic and effective. Stage 2: Interview If youre successful at sift stage you will be invited to a video interview via Microsoft Teams. There, you will be assessed against the experiences listed in the essential criteria. Interviews will take place from mid to late April 2025. Interview dates to be confirmed. Further information Find out more about Working for DWP If high application volumes are received, the benchmark for candidates to proceed to the next stage may be raised. In line with our commitment to the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS), we aim to advance all candidates applying under the DCS who meet the minimum standard. However, we may only progress those candidates who best meet the required standards. A reserve list may be held for a period of 6 months from which further appointments can be made. All successful candidates and those placed on reserve will be posted in merit list order by location. Offers of employment: Following the interview stage, should you not reach the required standard for the advertised Grade 7 role, we may be able to offer you a role which would be a grade below the advertised post under our Near Miss process. Any candidates falling into this category will be contacted once the interview results have been released The Civil Service values honesty and integrity and expects all candidates to abide by these principles. Please ensure that all examples provided in your application are taken directly from your own experience and that you describe the examples in your own words. Applications will be screened and if evidence of plagiarism or copying examples/answers from other sources is found, your application will be withdrawn. Internal DWP candidates may also face disciplinary action. Security Clearance Requirement You must meet the security requirements before you can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check. For meaningful checks to be carried out, you will need to have lived in the UK for a sufficient period of time, to enable appropriate checks to be carried out and produce a result which provides the required level of assurance. Whilst a lack of UK residency in itself is not necessarily a bar to a security clearance, and expectation of UK residency may range from 3 to 5 years. Failure to meet the residency requirements needed for the role may result in the withdrawal of provisional jobs offers. NSV For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the Demystifying Vetting website. Reasonable Adjustment At DWP we value diversity and inclusion and actively encourage and welcome applications from everyone, including those that are underrepresented in our workforce. We consider visible and non-visible disabilities, neurodiversity or learning differences, chronic medical conditions, or mental ill health. Examples include dyslexia, epilepsy, autism, chronic fatigue, or schizophrenia. If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should: Contact Government Recruitment Service via DigitalRecruitment.grscabinetoffice.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs. Complete the Reasonable Adjustments section in the Additional requirements page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if youre deaf, a Language Service Professional. For further information on reasonable adjustments, terms and conditions and how we recruit visit the How we recruit page. Feedback Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment. Security Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window). See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks. Nationality requirements This job is broadly open to the following groups: UK nationals nationals of the Republic of Ireland nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window) nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020 Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window) Working for the Civil Service The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants. We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy. Diversity and Inclusion The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window) .