Quality Assurance Engineer

Hiscox UK is a leading brand in the insurance market, recognised as setting the standards others try to emulate. We consistently deliver strong growth and exceptional returns, recruiting only the very best and empowering them to deliver. We are known for insuring the homes of the rich and famous through the most innovative technology companies. Our customers are diverse and unique and are only united by our ability to provide specialist insurance tailored to their needs.

The Role

Reporting to the Principal QA Engineer/Lead QA Engineer, the role of the QA Engineer is to apply your  business, system and quality engineering knowledge to drive high quality technology changes across the Hiscox UK Technology Estate.

You will be aligned to a specific squad/project and your job will entail building deep knowledge of the products, IT applications and changes in that squad, contributing to the creation of acceptance criteria for your changes, planning, designing and executing testing. You will challenge and promote the need to embed quality throughout the delivery lifecycle and you will use the most relevant test approaches, tools and techniques to assess quality and highlight risks impacting users and our business.  

You will be part of a wider test chapter and will be expected to share knowledge and contribute ideas that would make the overall quality engineering processes as efficient and transparent as possible.

Key Responsibilities:

• To be an integral part of the squad and value stream, to understand how the end-to-end business process and the technical solution works, and devise the most effective test suite to validate the changes

• Contribute to definition of Story scope and acceptance criteria

• Create or contribute to the creation of test approaches where necessary

• Verify story scope and acceptance criteria have been met by testing the change

• Verify changes have not adversely impacted other functional features by devising and performing targeted Regression Testing

• Log, re-test and ensure resolution of defects in a timely manner and based on their criticality

• Ensure a record of the testing performed is maintained as appropriate

• Attend relevant squad ceremonies and be an active contributor in these – daily huddles, refinement and estimating sessions, retrospectives etc.

• Contribute to the release delivery via release regression or any other support activities

• Provide high quality reports on quality of changes and risks

• Contribute to wider test chapter meetings, know the strategy and how your work in the squad contributes to its success, actively working on specific wider team initiatives that aim to continuously improve our ways of working

• Actively learning and using testing tools and techniques that increase testing efficiency

• Have clear development objectives that allow you to increase your knowledge  - business, technical, quality engineering, test automation - and are actively progressing these

Essential Skills:

• Experience in any traditional test phase/methodology – UAT, System test, Agile testing

• Has knowledge of the software testing process and is able to use the tools required to manage their day to day job independently – Planning, preparation, execution, defect management, evidence requirements, reporting

• Experience testing any specific system or application software – Web, API, Data Warehousing using appropriate tools

• Self-motivated and able to work with minimal supervision

• Good organisational skills and the ability to work in a methodical manner and meet deadlines. Drive, determination, teamwork, confidence, customer focus, initiative, dedication as well as having good listening, communication and analytical skills

• A proactive approach to problem solving, taking ownership of issues and having the determination to follow things through.

• Driven to take ownership and improve personal contribution

Desirable Skills:

• ISTQB or other software testing certification a plus

• Insurance Business knowledge

• Previous Exposure to Software Delivery/Projects

• Experience of using Jira/ADO/Zephyr

• Agile testing knowledge

• Test planning, test management, test reporting

Diversity and flexible working at Hiscox

At Hiscox we care about our people. We hire the best people for the job and we’re committed to diversity and creating a truly inclusive culture, which we believe drives success. We also understand that working life doesn’t always have to be ‘nine to five’ and we support flexible working wherever we can. No promises, but please chat to our resourcing team about the flexibility we could offer for this role.