Qa engineer; auto) complex digital services

Methods is a UK-based IT services consultancy that partners with central government departments and agencies to transform public-sector operations. It develops people-centred, safe, and future-ready business and technical solutions, and is expanding its private-sector client portfolio.

• Design, develop, and maintain automated API, integration, and end-to-end tests
• Contribute reusable test components and maintainable automation frameworks, apply sound coding practices, and participate in code reviews
• Define testable acceptance criteria and positive, negative, and boundary scenarios with developers, business analysts, and product owners
• Select appropriate testing levels for risks while balancing coverage, execution time, and maintenance effort
• Integrate and maintain automated tests in Azure Dev Ops CI/CD pipelines, providing timely, actionable feedback
• Test asynchronous workflows and service interactions, including event processing, messaging, retries, and failure recovery
• Verify business outcomes through APIs, database checks, and user journeys, including downstream processing and data consistency
• Create and maintain repeatable test data, accounting for environment dependencies, test isolation, and parallel execution
• Investigate failures using application logs, API responses, database queries, and pipeline results; distinguish application defects from automation, data, and environment issues
• Improve suite reliability by addressing flaky tests, duplication, and regression coverage gaps
• Turn production defects and recurring incidents into repeatable automated regression scenarios
• Perform targeted exploratory testing and contribute to performance, accessibility, security, and operational readiness testing with relevant specialists
• Maintain test coverage, execution records, and release evidence in Jira/Zephyr, ensuring traceability to changes, environments, and releases
• Raise reproducible defects and collaborate on triage, resolution, and verification
• Communicate testing progress, outcomes, residual risks, and coverage limitations to technical and non-technical stakeholders

• Strong hands-on Java programming skills and experience writing, reviewing, and maintaining automated test code
• Practical experience with Serenity BDD, Cucumber/Gherkin, Selenium Web Driver, and REST Assured, supported by frameworks such as JUnit and AssertJ
• Strong understanding of HTTP, REST APIs, JSON, authentication, validation, and error handling
• Experience testing distributed or microservice-based applications, including asynchronous processing and messaging
• Ability to verify end-to-end business workflows across service boundaries, including data persistence and downstream outcomes
• Confidence using SQL and application logs to prepare test data, investigate failures, and validate results
• Experience with Maven, Git, pull requests, and automated build pipelines
• Experience integrating and troubleshooting automated tests in Azure Dev Ops YAML pipelines or a comparable CI/CD platform
• Understanding of test isolation, parallel execution, synchronisation, and causes of unreliable automated tests
• Experience working in Agile teams and contributing to refinement, Three Amigos discussions, and behaviour-driven development
• Ability to prioritise testing based on business risk and balance component, integration, and end-to-end testing
• Experience managing defects, test execution, and traceable evidence with Jira/Zephyr or equivalent tools
• Clear communication, collaborative problem-solving, and ownership of issues through resolution
• Eligibility to obtain SC clearance
• Willingness to undergo Security Clearance; candidates must complete a Baseline Personnel Security Standard during onboarding. Failure to meet this and associated…