Principal Test Engineer Automation and Innovation Centre - Home Office - G6

Location

Croydon CR0 2WF , Manchester M5 3LZ , Sheffield S3 8NU

About the job

Job summary

We are looking for people who are passionate about Quality. Do you want to be part of the award-winning Home Office Quality Assurance and Testing Team (QAT) within Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) 

Quality is at the heart of everything we do. We provide a large-scale shared service, delivered through 900+ QA professionals. It supports services that are essential for the UK! 

We won the Testing Team of the Year at the 2024 European Software Testing Awards and were also re-certified at TMMi level 5, receiving the best score globally.  

This role will provide technical QA leadership within our Automation and Innovation Portfolio. The Home Office Automation and Innovation portfolio delivers the government's commitment to "set the standard for excellence in the AI age" - harnessing cutting-edge technology to revolutionise public service delivery. As outlined in the Government's Generative AI Framework, we're in "a period of rapid and exciting technological changes, which offers huge potential", and we're turning that potential into reality.  

Our work spans Home Office mission-critical operations, such as transforming Border Security and immigration processes, to revolutionising asylum case management and enhancing Counter-Terrorism capabilities. Imagine developing technology that helps reunite families, creates safer communities, protects vulnerable people, and ensures smoother journeys for the millions travelling to and from the UK.  

Key features of the role include opportunities to: 

Transform Government with AI 

Help deliver the UK government's AI vision while transforming the Home Office. Our Automation and Innovation portfolio is implementing the Government's Generative AI Framework, turning technological potential into reality. 

National Scale Impact 

Our work spans Border Security, Immigration, Asylum case management and Counter-Terrorism operations. Develop technology that reunites families, creates safer communities, protects vulnerable people, and improves UK travel experiences. 

Public Sector Innovation at Pace 

We've delivered millions in efficiency savings by automating routine tasks, allowing colleagues to focus on complex human-centred work. Our solutions create meaningful improvements in public service delivery. 

Join Our Team 

Work with our Automation Centre, Data Science and Evaluation team, or Innovation Lab to: 

Build solutions improving lives nationwide.

Work with diverse AI and automation technologies. 

Collaborate with technical experts. 

Develop skills at the forefront of public sector innovation. 

Help build a future-ready Home Office where innovation delivers daily impact. Ready to use cutting-edge technology to transform millions of lives across the UK? 

Job description

As the Principal Test Engineer for the Automation and Innovation Portfolio, you’ll be critical to delivering testing, quality engineering, assurance and maturing the quality of our engineering practice. This will particularly excite you if you are a quality engineering expert with a keen interest and experience in low-code/no-code engineering (e.g. PowerApps) and have a keen interest in how AI systems are developed, evaluated and assured. 

You will be part of the leadership team in the business area. You will provide leadership and guidance to a team of QAT engineers, further developing your own, Test engineering delivery management and leadership skills. 

You will work with engineering, architecture, product, delivery and business stakeholders, understanding their needs and translating them into a QAT approach, driven by engineering at its core. You will also work with development teams to embed test engineering within the overall development approach and with industry partners to leverage the best of new and emerging tools and AI testing & assurance approaches. Within the DDaT community, you will take a lead in sharing, collaborating and promoting the value of QAT. 

We have a wide portfolio of projects, and our vast estate covers a whole range of tools. The below is sample snapshot of some tools we use:  

• Cloud: AWS and Azure. 
• Backend: Java, Node.js, C#, Python, PHP, Scala, Power Platform 
• Test Frameworks: PowerApps test studio & test engine, Playwright, Python based frameworks like Pytest, and several bespoke frameworks. 
• DevOps:  Azure, AWS, Kubernetes, Azure DevOps, Jenkins, Docker, Ansible, Terraform 
• AI: Azure ML Studio, Python, Github Copilot, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google 
• Other tools: Inspect , Axe, Checkov, ZAP, SonarQube. 

Person specification

UK residency and security requirements - You need to have lived in the UK for the past 5 years.  

Your main day to day responsibilities will be: 

• You will be setting the overall direction for QAT engineering, AI Testing and assurance practices within the Portfolio, and promote DevSecOps best practices. 
• Partnering with engineering and senior delivery partners to make sure frameworks are embedded by default in the QA engineering approach, implementing all levels of a modern test pyramid that map to a modern CI/CD pipeline. 
• Building, mentoring and leading quality engineering teams by providing support and guidance to more junior members and providing technical advice on improving the way we do things. 
• Building and delivering quality engineering solutions that are scalable, efficient, and cost effective. 
• Quantifying, measuring, and reporting on code quality and using risk-based approaches to decision making.
• Making the QAT practice thrive by exploiting new and emerging tools and approaches and using these to help the organisation deliver better services.

Essential criteria 

As a Principal Test Engineer, you will have experience of: 

• Selecting and deploying a broad range of tools and test automation techniques including Open-Source technologies and object-orientated design, programming languages such as C# (or Java), Python and TypeScript, PowerApps platform tools, Azure (or AWS) tool stack, test tools like Playwright, using continuous integration, deployment and release tools (Lead essential criteria) 
• Working at senior leadership level, establishing and maintaining organisational level networks and actively engaging other senior leaders 
• Leading a technical team of test engineers 
• Developing organisational level test approaches that implement all levels of a modern test pyramid in a cloud DevSecOps environment 
• Setting strategic direction at organisational level for the design of AI and low-code/no-code test approaches involving test automation  
• Designing, building, deploying and improving QAT test engineering capabilities. 

SFIA capability framework 

Skills for the Information Age (SFIA) is the technical framework that sets the standard capability and development of all Quality Assurance & Testing levels in the Home Office. This is a link to the capability framework:  All skills A–Z — English (sfia-online.org) 

We use set SFIA technical skills to form our interview questions and we will assess you against these technical skills during the selection process. 

SFIA levels of responsibility – Use the SFIA Levels of responsibility to understand what would be expected for each Technical Skill listed below. 

SFIA Technical skills 

The essential technical skills listed above are reflective of the Home Office Government Digital and Data Profession Career Framework. Please see below for the relevant skills required for your role. 

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Managing a Quality Service
• Developing Self and Others
• Seeing the Big Picture

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Strategic Planning (ITSP) – Level 5
• Test Analysis, Design and Execution – Level 4
• Automation and Tooling – Level 5
• Performance Testing – Level 4
• Integration and Assurance – Level 4
• Domain Experience – Level 4