Lead Automation Tester
Permanent
Location: UK – Remote
Salary: £70,000 - £80,000 (+ benefits)

Skills: Team Management, Python, Java, CI/CD, BDD (Cucumber), Energy / Financial Trading experience (desirable)

We’re recruiting a Lead Automation Tester for a leading software company that develops advanced solutions for trading and risk management across global financial and energy markets.

This is a fantastic opportunity for an experienced Automation Engineer with proven team leadership or management experience to take ownership of automation practices and guide a small, skilled team. You’ll play a key role in driving an automation-first culture, ensuring quality and scalability across complex, high-volume systems.

This is a UK based fully remote role.

What you’ll bring

We’re looking for strong experience in test automation with as many of the following as possible:

• Programming & Scripting: Python, Java, JavaScript, C++, Scriban
• Web Technologies: RESTful APIs, HTTP, JSON, HTML, CSS, Node.js
• Databases: SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB
• Tools & Frameworks: Git, Docker, Jenkins, Kubernetes, Agile (Scrum & Kanban), JIRA, Pytest, Powershell
• Operating Systems: Linux, Windows

Additional skills that will set you apart:

• CI/CD pipelines and debugging expertise
• BDD frameworks such as Cucumber
• Strong problem-solving mindset and collaborative approach

Industry background

Experience in the following sectors is highly desirable (in order of preference):

• Energy/Financial Trading (knowledge of Endur, Allegro or Findur platforms beneficial but not essential)
• Regulated software industries
• High volume, high complexity data systems

Senior Front End Developer (React)
Fully Remote - UK
3 Month Contract
Rate: £450 - £500 per day (Inside IR35)

We are looking to recruit a Senior Front End Developer for a global software organisation on an initial 3 month contract.

This is an excellent opportunity to work hands-on with modern frontend technologies, shape the user experience, and mentor junior developers.

What You’ll Be Doing:

• Hands-on development of new functionality, building the frontend and integrating with APIs.
• Modify and modernise existing functionality to improve performance and usability.
• Apply best practices to deliver high-quality, secure, and performant solutions.
• Build reusable components and collaborate closely with teams across the business.
• Work with product managers, UX/UI designers, and stakeholders to gather requirements and propose effective solutions.
• Provide accurate estimates for work items and contribute to project planning.
• Identify and troubleshoot software issues, implementing timely and effective solutions.
• Create and maintain comprehensive documentation.
• Stay updated on emerging technologies and industry trends, advocating for improvements that could benefit the team and projects.
• Coach and mentor junior engineers, sharing knowledge and best practices.

Essential Skills:

• Strong experience with React (hooks), Zustand, TypeScript, and JavaScript
• HTML / CSS expertise
• Proficient with automated testing frameworks such as Vitest, Playwright or similar
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
• Strong verbal and written communication, with experience collaborating across teams
• Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments
• Knowledge of automated testing methodologies

Preferred Skills:

• Experience with other JS frameworks, particularly Knockout JS
• Tailwind CSS
• Micro frontend architecture
• .NET, C#, ASP.NET experience
• Cloud technologies (Azure, AWS)
• DevOps practices and tools (CI/CD, containerisation, etc.)
• Awareness of accessibility standards and best practices

Golang Backend Developer
Fully Remote - UK
3 Month Contract
Rate: £450 - £500 (Inside IR35)

We are looking to recruit a Golang Backend Developer for a global software organisation on an initial 3 month contract.

This is an excellent opportunity to contribute to high-performance backend systems in a collaborative environment and make a tangible impact on scalable, secure products.

What You’ll Do:

• Write clean, maintainable, and high-quality Go code following best practices.
• Design, develop, and maintain large-scale backend systems with a focus on performance, reliability, and scalability.
• Build and maintain API-based interfaces, ensuring security and compliance with industry standards.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to understand requirements and translate them into technical solutions.
• Participate in code reviews, provide constructive feedback, and help raise engineering standards.
• Troubleshoot complex issues using logs, profiling, and collaborative debugging.
• Optimise system architecture to handle growing traffic and improve efficiency.
• Own critical components of the system, from design and development to testing and maintenance.
• Implement and maintain CI/CD pipelines to automate testing, build, and deployment processes.

What We’re Looking For:

• Strong experience with Golang and backend development.
• Proven track record building scalable and reliable backend systems.
• Experience designing and consuming APIs.
• Knowledge of CI/CD, automated testing, and deployment processes.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and ability to work in a collaborative team environment.
• Experience troubleshooting complex system issues and optimising performance.

Wright Hassall

Large legal firm, based in Leamington Spa

Olympus Avenue, L/Spa, CV34 6BF

230 staff, established 176 years.  Won many awards.

09.00 – 17.30 (1.15 breaks)

Onsite canteen and pool table and chill out areas.

The Team

Chat GPT questions:

1. Scaling & Growth
"Can you tell me about a time you’ve helped scale a software business — what were the key challenges you faced, and what changes did you put in place to support growth?"

✔ Covers scaling a business and knowing what “good” looks like.

2. Embedding Best Practices
"What processes or best practices have you introduced in an engineering organisation to improve delivery, resilience, or team effectiveness — and how did you ensure they stuck?"

✔ Covers embedding best practices, delivery velocity, and resilience.

3. Taking Over from a Founder
"This role involves stepping into a position previously held by the founder, who will remain as Chairman. How have you managed situations where you’ve had to take over from a very visible or influential leader, and how would you approach this dynamic?"

✔ Tests emotional intelligence, diplomacy, and ability to navigate founder influence.

4. Setting the Standard (‘Good’ Looks Like)
"In your view, what does ‘good’ look like in terms of engineering operations and delivery in a SaaS business, and how have you implemented that in previous roles?"

✔ Checks candidate has a benchmark from lived experience, not just theory.

5. Cascading Strategy into Execution
"How do you typically gather strategic objectives from the business, and then translate and cascade them effectively into engineering and product teams?"

✔ Covers communication, alignment, and glue role between CTO, product, and engineering.

Bonus (Customer-Facing Leadership):
"This role is customer-facing as well as internally focused. Can you share an example where you’ve had to handle a customer escalation or support a sales/RFP process from a technical standpoint?"

✔ From the spec — ensures they’re not just internally strong, but also comfortable with customers.

Scaling & Resilience

1. When you’ve inherited an engineering team during a period of growth, what were the first things you looked at to ensure scalability and resilience?

2. Can you give an example of how you reduced knowledge concentration within a team and built resilience through documentation, cross-training, or other approaches?

3. What strategies have you used to balance delivery velocity with system stability in a SaaS environment?

Leadership & Team Culture

4. How have you developed or reshaped a team culture when joining as a new leader, especially in a team with long-serving members?

5. Tell me about a time you’ve led geographically dispersed teams. What worked well and what lessons did you learn?

6. How do you mentor and grow technical leaders (e.g., system architects) while still ensuring accountability for delivery?

Working with Founders / Stakeholders

7. This role involves stepping in after a founder — how would you establish credibility with both the team and senior leadership while respecting their legacy?

8. How have you handled situations where a senior stakeholder had a strong personal view on how things should be done, but you felt a different approach was better?

Defining ‘Good’ & Best Practice

9. If you were dropped into this role tomorrow, what key metrics would you track to understand whether engineering operations are “good” or not?

10. Can you give an example where you transformed engineering delivery by embedding new processes or best practices? How did you measure success?

11. What does effective collaboration between engineering and product look like to you — and what pitfalls have you seen when that relationship goes wrong?

Customer-Facing Leadership

12. How have you engaged with customers to gather feedback on technical performance or service quality, and how did you feed that back into engineering?

13. Tell me about a time you’ve been involved in a customer escalation — how did you balance technical reality with the need to protect relationships?

14. What role have you played in supporting RFPs or pre-sales conversations, and how do you tailor technical input for non-technical audiences?

Financial & Commercial Awareness

15. How have you managed engineering budgets or optimised delivery to reduce marginal cost of sale?

16. Can you share an example where financial or commercial objectives clashed with engineering priorities — how did you resolve it?

Process & Continuous Improvement

17. How have you introduced or improved Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in a growing business?

18. What tools, metrics, or frameworks have you found most useful for monitoring delivery health (e.g., sprint health, velocity, release cadence)?

19. How do you approach risk management in engineering operations, and can you share a time where proactive risk identification saved a business from a major issue?

my notes:

• Call with Paul Brown
• Have placed – Theo Eguahon & Diogo

• Plagiarism / AI detection produce – acquired Besart’s company – going to stay 1 day a week

• Talks about sales and working with the customer – translation requirements

• Besart – founder and product evanilegist – like the CEO becoming the Chairman

• There is a good product person in that division

• More of a business scaling technical director type of person – report in to Paul

• Product in to Brent, then technical aspects in to Paul

• Paul has a VP of Engineering already – this person is more of a glue at the operating level

• More COO sitting alongside product

• Eg new brief from the business – this person to be at the front and driving it, cascade to product, engineering, how it looks

• Paul has been CTO of marketing servives, had to someone at director level – how they price it, glue things together

• Need to help that business scale – eg a director in a medium sized business – need to know what good looks like, from established company

• 3 – 6 months will be Mon – Fri in Kosovo. Likely not to have family ties. Once established, and get culture change, be more hands off

• Look in UK and Portugal

• Doesn’t major enough it needs to be background in technology and saas

• There is a solid principal engineer so can separate

• Double agent – report to Paul and implement org changes, and keep team on side

• 70% engineering – and scaling

• Person in post by Jan 2026 – shortlist within 3 weeks