Lead Development Engineer in Test (Automation Testing)

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I seem to be the go-to recruiter for hybrid roles at the moment so with that in mind, here I am with another one... I mean why stop right?

This hybrid role in particular is essentially the equivalent of putting an Automation Tester and a Software Engineer in a blender (with a sprinkling of leadership experience) and creating a smoothie that is this role.

(**Disclaimer - no Testers or Engineers were harmed during the writing of the above paragraph)

But enough of the awful analogies... lets just get to the crux of this role shall we?

I am working in partnership with a global organisation, with an HQ based in Knutsford, who are looking to continue their company-wide transformation by hiring a Lead Development Engineer in Test. This role sits within one of the core tech functions within the business, highly visible and therefore crucial to their 2018 technology roadmap. You will be working with cutting edge technologies and will be given creative control to essentially set the tone for their strategy moving forward.

Basically... this is a pretty important hire.

The role itself will involve a range of responsibilities but the overriding purpose is to define, own and drive the Automation Testing strategy across the organisation.

During my conversations with the Hiring Manager, he made it clear that this role will essentially involve said organisation 'handing over the keys' and giving unparalled levels of creative control and autonomy. To put it bluntly, you won't be micro-managed and you won't have your hand held - rather, you will be expected to come in and contribute to a period of exciting technical change, breaking down and re-building their existing automation framework to suit the changing needs of the business.

Breaking the role down further, rather than simply regurgitating the formal JD like the majority of recruiters, I thought it would be worth focusing on the key areas that this role covers...

Automation Testing Experience - The absolute key focus of this role is automation testing - i.e. looking at their existing automation framework (Selenium, Cucumber, Gherkin) and basically deciding what to do with it. You will be expected to be the central expert that encourages, motivates and enthuses the teams to ensure everyone is working towards the same goal and ensure that automation testing is pushed throughout the SDLC. You should therefore have strong experience with industry standard test automation tools, experience in developing product test frameworks (Junit, Mockito, TestNG) and automating the reporting of said test results.

Software Engineering / Coding Skills - Coding skills are absolutely crucial to be considered for this role and are the reason I have repeatedly used the word 'hybrid'. Cutting straight to the chase, they are looking for somebody who will be able to understand the code under test, write the automation to test it, debug issues and when the feature team is under pressure, help the engineers to code stories. Although testing will be the core focus, development/coding experience is essential and the preference would be somebody from a Java (J2EE, Spring, Hibernate) background. Additional engineering experience with both database technologies (SQL, Oracle, MongoDB) and web/UI technologies (JavaScript, Bootstrap, Angular) would be an additional bonus.

Agile Methodologies - As with apparently every other organisation on the planet, this organisation is on an 'Agile journey' (well... their own version of Agile anyway) and proven commercial experience with Agile/Scrum is therefore a key factor when applying for this role. You should be somebody who understands (a) how automation testing fits within an Agile environment and (b) the benefits of such an environment. Wider experience of processes such as DevOps, Continuous Integration, Test Driven Development (TDD) and Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) would be a nice bonus.

Leadership / Stakeholder Management - This is probably an obvious one due to the word 'Lead' in the job title, but strong leadership experience is essential to be considered for this role. You will be expected to guide and mentor teams whilst also liaising with both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Strong leadership skills and the ability to influence and manage expectations are skills which you should be able to demonstrate in any application.

So there you have it... a hybrid role and hopefully something you feel is worth discussin further!

If you want to give me a call, I can be contacted on either 07943721308 or 0191 338 7540. Alternatively, you can send me an email to [email protected] or connect with me on LinkedIn by searching for 'Liam Haghighat' (lets face it, I am pretty easy to find!).

Anything discussed will remain completely confidential