Howden is a collective – a group of talented and passionate people all around the world. Together, we have pushed the boundaries of insurance. We are united by a shared passion and no-limits mindset, and our strength lies in our ability to collaborate as a powerful international team comprised of 18,000 employees spanning over 100 countries.
People join Howden for many different reasons, but they stay for the same one: our culture. It’s what sets us apart, and the reason our employees have been turning down headhunters for years. Whatever your priorities – work / life balance, career progression, sustainability, volunteering – you’ll find like-minded people driving change at Howden.
Role: Senior Quality Assurance Engineer
Team: Web Development
Location: Remote first; with fortnightly to monthly face-to-face in Gloucester.
Tech: Blazor, C#, Azure, ADO, HTML, CSS. Moq, NUnit, bUnit, Automapper, Playwright, Jmeter.
As one of the largest insurance groups in the world and the fifth largest employee-owned business in the UK, we manage premiums on behalf of millions of clients across a wide range of product offerings and our development team work on solutions that innovate and put the user’s needs at the forefront.
Role
As a Senior Quality Assurance Engineer at Howden, you will join one of our agile teams. You will harness the capabilities of Microsoft Azure, Blazor, C# and Playwright to develop and test our front-end applications to create scalable, high-performing, and user-friendly solutions that are secure and reliable.
You will participate in regular agile sessions, collaborating closely with your team to deliver our roadmap whilst developing our automated test capability. You will influence and encourage a quality is everyone’s responsibility mindset and shift-left approach. Our environment promotes cross-team learning and collaboration, ensuring you have opportunities to share knowledge and grow alongside your peers.
As a senior you will be comfortable and committed to coaching and mentoring less experienced colleagues to help them progress towards senior. You will help drive up standards and quality as well as maximising throughput of the team through a robust CI/CD mindset. You will also work with other seniors to take lead roles on architectural and technical designs and present these as part of team refinement.
About you:
A keen understanding of the broader technological landscape.
You will have a strong understanding of the test pyramid and a myriad of testing techniques (Smoke, white-box, performance, exploratory etc).
You will have demonstrable experience working with C#, Blazor or other front-end technologies and how best to test them.
You are comfortable working closely with software engineers.
You will understand and promote the need for automation but will not necessarily be required to code – Quality is a team responsibility.
A keen eye for detail and a focus on putting users first.
A defensive mindset when consuming APIs and sanitising user inputs.
A strong understanding and experience in testing accessibility needs and relevant standards.
Familiarity with Test-driven Development and a strong commitment to high quality, maintainable and easy to understand code.
You have had exposure to cloud technologies (preferably Azure)
A strong communicator and facilitator.
A demonstrable risk-based approach to testing.
An experimental and scientific mindset leading to data-led decision making.
An understanding of agile development methodologies
Genuinely believes in the value of continuous delivery practices and iterative development based on feedback.
Actively engage and participate in all agile sessions.
Ability to demonstrate working software to a mixture of technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Experience coaching and mentoring less experienced colleagues.
Working with the leadership team on identifying training needs within your team.
Working with our product owners in refining, designing and architecting solutions in keeping with, or challenging, existing patterns and technologies.
Spots and remediates risks in the SDLC.
Familiarity with architectural decision records.
Strong documentation skills in generating acceptance criteria, test plans, and test cases etc.
Rewards:
We believe that great work and dedication should be rewarded, that’s why we offer:
25 days holiday (plus bank holidays), pro-rated for part year service
A set of core benefits, designed with your health and financial protection in mind:
Life Assurance up to 4x salary, protecting your loved ones in case the worst should happen
Income protection, guaranteeing an income for up to 5 years in the event of an illness or injury
Contributory pension scheme – 4% employer contribution and 5% employee contribution, rising to 5% & 5% in April 2025
Access to a Healthcare Cashplan, which gives you access to a variety of health related benefits
Access to a host of lifestyle and financial benefits that you can choose from:
Discounts on gym membership across the UK
Salary sacrifice schemes – Travel Insurance, Cycle to Work, Car leasing, Technology purchase
Access to discounted personal health policies – Critical illness, private medical, dental plans
A range of insurance products available commission free, including home, motor, travel and specialist vehicles
Access to hundreds of high-street retailer discounts
Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) to support employees outside of work
A career that you define. At Howden, we value diversity – there is no one Howden type. Instead, we’re looking for individuals who share the same values as us:
Our successes have all come from someone brave enough to try something new
We support each other in the small everyday moments and the bigger challenges
We are determined to make a positive difference at work and beyond
We're committed to providing reasonable accommodations at Howden to ensure that our positions align well with your needs. Besides the usual adjustments such as software, IT, and office setups, we can also accommodate other changes such as flexible hours* or hybrid working*.
If you're excited by this role but have some doubts about whether it’s the right fit for you, send us your application – if your profile fits the role’s criteria, we will be in touch to assist in helping to get you set up with any reasonable adjustments you may require.
*Not all positions can accommodate changes to working hours or locations. Reach out to your Recruitment Partner if you want to know more.
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