Role: Lead Test Engineer/Principal SDET REF 101499
Contract Length: Until 31/07/26
Location: Hybrid/Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham or Newcastle – 60% in office
IR35: Inside
Pay Rate to Intermediary: Up to £640 per day
Security Clearance: SC requested
Spinwell is recruiting for a Lead Test Engineer/Principal SDET for an excellent opportunity within the public sector.
RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE LEAD TEST ENGINEER/PRINCIPAL SDET
Test Strategy & Leadership
- Define and implement an end-to-end test strategy aligned to microservices architecture
- Establish standards, patterns, and best practices across multiple teams
- Assess current testing approaches and drive continuous improvement
- Embed testing strategy across teams, creating scalable frameworks and exemplars
Hands-on Engineering
- Design, build, and maintain automated test frameworks
- Work across different test levels: unit, integration, contract, system, and E2E
- Lead automation efforts in Java-based environments
- Support teams with implementation, not just direction
Collaboration & Governance
- Partner with engineering teams and stakeholders to ensure alignment
- Provide technical leadership and coaching to testers and developers
- Ensure testing practices are consistently applied across teams
- Maintain visibility of quality and delivery outcomes
SKILLS/EXPERIENCE OF THE LEAD TEST ENGINEER/PRINCIPAL SDET
Technical Expertise
- Strong experience designing and implementing test strategies for microservices environments
- Hands-on automation experience using:
- Java, Selenium, Rest Assured
- API, contract, and integration testing
- Experience working with monolith and microservices systems
- Knowledge of:
- CI/CD pipelines
- Spring Boot-based applications
o Performance testing fundamentals
Modern Testing Practices
- Strong understanding of:
- Contract testing, API testing, and asynchronous messaging (e.g. Kafka)
- Non-functional testing (performance, accessibility)
- Experience with non-relational databases (e.g. MongoDB)
- Automation-first mindset with ability to build reusable, maintainable frameworks
Leadership
- Experience operating at Lead / Principal level
- Ability to influence stakeholders without direct authority
- Strong communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences
Tools & Technologies
- Cloud: AWS
- Test Frameworks: Selenium, Serenity BDD, Playwright
- Contract Testing: Pactflow, Spring Cloud Contract
- Messaging: Kafka
- Databases: MongoDB
- CI/CD & DevOps: GitHub, GitLab, Jenkins, Docker
- Performance Testing: Gatling, K6
- Observability: Grafana, Prometheus, Splunk
If you are a Lead Test Engineer/Principal SDET, apply now or send your CV to Spinwell!
We welcome all applications regardless of background, in line with our commitment to diversity, equality and inclusion.
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