Lead Quality Engineer

We're looking for a Lead Quality Engineer to join our Digital Operations team here at N Brown Group. As one of the two Lead Quality Engineers, you will collaborate on shared objectives and resource management while independently guiding your designated area. This is not a hands‑off role and while your main focus will be owning and driving the end‑to‑end test strategy across our digital products and supporting your squads, there is plenty of opportunity to get involved in the hands‑on testing.

You'll guide an established team of QA engineers, championing automation and continuous improvement, working closely with product, engineering, and delivery teams to ensure every change we release is reliable, secure, performant, and customer‑centric.

You’ll be a quality advocate who cares deeply about the customer experience. A pragmatic leader who can balance speed and quality in a fast‑paced retail environment. Someone excited by innovation, who wants to push how we test, automate, and assure quality at scale across N Brown's digital platforms. We are looking for a creative problem solver who is excited to innovate and push the boundaries of quality assurance at scale.

• Line‑manage and mentor QA engineers, supporting their career development, coaching, and upskilling.
• Set quality standards, provide feedback on test design and coverage, and foster a culture of ownership and accountability.
• Champion collaboration in cross‑functional squads, ensuring QA is involved from discovery through to release.
• Help drive the Test Chapter initiative forward.

• Explore and introduce innovative testing approaches.
• Use data and metrics to drive continuous improvement.
• Work with Engineering and Product to experiment with new tools, techniques, and AI‑driven testing where appropriate.

• Ensure testing reflects the realities of an omni‑channel retail business, including seasonal trading peaks, promotions, and campaigns.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to understand customer journeys, pain points, and business KPIs, and translate these into meaningful test scenarios.
• Help safeguard site performance and stability during key retail events.

• Define and maintain quality gates, test standards, and documentation across squads.
• Support risk assessments and release readiness decisions, clearly articulating quality, risk, and impact to stakeholders.
• Ensure compliance with internal security, data protection, and regulatory requirements in testing practices.

• Proven experience in a QA Lead/Lead Quality Engineer level role within e‑commerce, retail, or high‑traffic digital environments.
• Excellent communication skills, able to translate technical quality risks into clear, business‑relevant language.
• Strong understanding of test strategies, test design, and risk‑based testing across web, mobile, and APIs.
• Ideally Hands‑on experience with test automation frameworks (e.g., UI and API automation) and integrating tests into CI/CD.
• Familiarity with modern engineering practices (Agile, Scrum/Kanban, Dev Ops, microservices, cloud).
• Experience working with cross‑functional squads and influencing without direct authority.
• Data‑driven mindset, comfortable using metrics and analytics to inform decision making and improvements.

• Hybrid working (2 days in the office at a minimum)
• 24 days holiday (+ 8 bank holidays)
• Annual bonus scheme
• Enhanced maternity and adoption leave
• Company pension with up to 8% N Brown contribution
• Mental Health support both internally and externally, including access to our wellbeing champions and counselling services
• A range of financial wellbeing support
• Stream – a financial wellbeing tool that helps you track your pay, access earnings early and manage your money with confidence
• Colleague discount across all N Brown brands
• Onsite café with subsidised rates and local restaurant discounts!
• Life Assurance and Private Medical Insurance
• Paid volunteer time – all our colleagues can take a full day paid to volunteer for a charity of…