About us
Our sector is being held back by old tech, dismal processes and misaligned interests. Together they create pointless complexity for financial planning and investment professionals, and provide outdated, overpriced experiences for customers. It’s our mission to change all that.
We build technology that helps more people to invest – and invest well.
Our engineering allows forward-thinking firms to remove the hassle, lower the cost and improve the overall experience of investing – empowering more people to invest and be treated well.
With our embedded investment engine at their core, companies of all shapes and sizes can launch new investment platforms in record quick time – strengthening their proposition, growing their revenue, lowering their costs and improving their customer experience.
We are part of the Octopus Group – founded in 2000 with a mission to breathe new life into broken industries, Octopus has become one of the most disruptive and progressive companies across the financial services and energy sectors. It now has over 2,500 staff, serves 2.5 million customers and is proud to be a B Corp.
The role
We are looking for a talented senior QA automation engineer to join our amazing team and work on a range of exciting products. You will perform manual testing and seek to automate wherever possible. You will also help mentor your colleagues to deliver impactful improvements to our product and system, while bringing new ideas to the team and contributing to the QA framework.
We are an API first organisation and while you may work on our front-end the majority of your work will predominantly be back-end focused.
What will you be doing?
On a day-to-day level, you’ll…
- Work in a domain-aligned cross functional squad made up of developers, testers, and product managers, along with colleagues from our customer and operations teams
- Work closely with the product team to provide input into shaping future work
- Be a technical QA leader within the squad
- Be influential in setting the technical QA direction within a squad
- Mentor and support other members of the team and the wider engineering organisation in all things QA.
- Work across squads to develop and improve QA processes, best practice and technologies
- Write automated tests, debug, deploy and support
Who are we looking for?
You’ll be someone who...
- Can develop and implement a QA strategy with support from colleagues
- Enjoys testing all products throughout the development process and working closely with the engineering and product teams
- Has the ability to work across multiple projects and is adaptable to a fast-paced, high-growth environment
- Strives to achieve high test coverage across our product and development lifecycle
- Can discover untested scenarios and work closely with product teams to ensure robust acceptance criteria
- Will make sure that manual tests are organised and performed where automation is not possible
- Has excellent knowledge of test automation frameworks for both front-end and back-end testing
- Is experienced in API test automation
- Has good skills in Javascript or Typescript
- Works autonomously, taking ownership for personal and team delivery and outcomes
- Who has experience of moving from simple user stories to TDD/BDD stories that use Gherkin
- Is ISTQB qualified, or similar qualification (desirable)
How do we work?
We’re a team of ambitious, talented, and creative people who are passionate about using technology to improve our financial world.
We have a positive, open environment that promotes fresh ideas, challenge and experimentation, and encourages continual learning. We provide flexible working that focusses on delivery rather than just focusing on hours worked.
We work in both Scrum and Kanban depending on the squad’s preference, with ceremonies including daily standups, refinement, retrospectives and reviews.
Our culture and environment:
We are proud to cultivate a culture first, human environment and genuinely listen to our people about what matters to them most. As a result, we’re proud we’ve cultivated a transparent and inclusive environment that encourages diversity of thought, challenge and experimentation.
We want our customers to love working with us. It takes a committed culture, backed up by a series of non-negotiable operating principles that define how we work…
- Never settle
- Take ownership
- Be generous and candid
We have offices in central Bath and Edinburgh, and a satellite office in London. We’re working as a hybrid team supporting each of our people to choose how they work best. We’ve always been supportive of flexible working that focuses on delivery and impact, rather than hours worked. Don’t just take our word for it, check out our Glassdoor page for the latest reviews or our Instagram, and LinkedIn for company updates and insights from the team.
What’s in it for you…
We offer a generous blend of benefits for the things that really matter to our people, including:
- 27 days holiday + bank holidays (or time in lieu for working bank holidays) + day off on your birthday
- 3 days dependant leave
- 6% employer pension contribution, and life assurance
- Private medical insurance with AXA Health
- Enhanced parental leave and flexibility to integrate your home and work life in a trusted environment
- Will writing offering with Guardian Angel
- New Macbook when you join and up to £500 home office set up budget
- £500 per person learning budget
- 1 day off per year to volunteer for a registered charity of your choice
- Work abroad for up to 6 weeks in the year
- Length of service awards – 1 month paid sabbatical at 8 years
- Health and wellbeing initiatives including free therapy, mental health support and time off.
- Subscription to Headspace
- Strong financial wellbeing focus including access to Octopus Moneycoach, Octopus share investment plan and Seccl invest (our own platform for you to manage your investments)
- Octopus Electric Vehicle scheme after 12 months of employment
- Perkbox – range of discounts and perks including free weekly coffee, gym and retail discounts
- Cycle to work scheme - saving money on a range of bikes and accessories
- Commitment to continuous learning with free access to over 10,000 on-line training courses
Our aim is to build a diverse and inclusive company of awesome people, with unique skills, passions and experiences. We encourage everyone to join us, whatever your gender identity, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or background.
Please note that we do not provide sponsorship for candidates residing outside the UK. However, we welcome applications from individuals who possess valid work permits that allow them to work in the UK. If you already have the right to work in the UK or hold an eligible work permit, we encourage you to apply for this position.
If you think you have most of what we are looking for, then what are you waiting for? Go ahead and apply. We’d love to hear from you!