Lead Quality Engineer

Company Overview

At Aberdeen our ambition is to be the UKs leading Wealth & Investments group. Strengthening talent and culture is one of our strategic priorities. We strive to make Aberdeen a great place to work so that we can attract and retain the industry’s best talent. Our people put our stakeholders at the heart of everything they do by helping us to make a positive difference to the lives of our clients, customers, colleagues, shareholders and society.

We are focused on growing our direct and advised wealth platforms and repositioning our specialist asset management business to meet client demand. We are committed to providing excellent client service supported by leading technology and talent.

• interactive investor – the UKs second largest direct‑to‑consumer investment platform enabling individuals in the UK to plan, save and invest in the way that works for them.
• Adviser – a financial planning and technology platform for UK financial advisers that enables them to create value for their customers.
• Investments – a specialist asset manager focusing on both public markets and alternative asset classes, capitalising on key market themes.

At Aberdeen Adviser we are building a modern, scalable technology platform that empowers financial advisers to serve their clients more efficiently. Our engineering teams work in cross‑functional squads to develop innovative, high‑quality software solutions that make a real impact. We foster a culture of collaboration, experimentation and continuous learning where every engineer can shape the future of our platform.

We’re creating a modern automation‑first test function. As Lead Quality Engineer you will operate in a Principal/Developer‑in‑Test capacity, setting automation strategy and standards across product squads and large programmes. You will line‑manage a combination of quality engineers and coaches
, coach engineers across disciplines, and partner with fellow Test Leads to raise the bar for quality r mission:
build the systems, practices and people that make reliable software delivery the default.

• Define and govern coding standards, test design patterns and automation architecture (UI, API, contract, component and integration layers). Select and evolve tool chains that fit our stack and delivery model.
• Embed shift‑left quality, risk‑based testing and CI/CD‑driven quality gates (including static analysis, unit coverage thresholds, contract verification, performance and smoke tests). Establish reliable test data and environment practices.
• Grow capability through 1:1s, pairing, code reviews, clinics and communities of practice. Develop learning roadmaps for automation engineers and side‑skill with the other Test Lead to cross‑pollinate practices across chapters.
• Define and own performance progression frameworks, hiring/assessment and wellbeing for the automation team.
• Work across multiple squads/initiatives, shaping test strategies, assuring delivery plans, unblocking teams and communicating risks and trade‑offs to senior stakeholders.
• Champion performance, reliability and accessibility testing; integrate checks into pipelines and partner with SRE/Platform/Security to automate NFR evidence.
• Define leading/lagging indicators (e.g. change fail rate, MTTD/MTTR, flake rate, escape rate), run experiments and iterate on tooling and processes based on data.

• Strong engineering skills in JavaScript/Type Script, Python, Java or C# with deep experience designing maintainable frameworks (e.g.
  Playwright
  , Cypress
  , Selenium
  , REST Assured
  , Pact for API & contract testing).
• Confident with Git trunk‑based development and build pipelines (Git Hub Actions, Azure Dev Ops, Jenkins). Familiar with containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes) and cloud (Azure, AWS, GCP) for test execution at scale.
• Proven record of setting automation strategies for multiteam programmes, influencing engineering leaders and balancing velocity, risk and compliance.
• Practical experience with performance testing (e.g. k6, JMeter) and integrating results into release decisions.
• Track record of line management (hiring, performance growth) and coachin…