Principal Engineer — Test Strategy

About This Role

18 years of experience
Skills: Test Strategy, Quality Engineering, Test Architecture, Automation Frameworks, Shift-Left Testing, CI/CD, AI Testing, Performance Testing, API Testing, Selenium / Playwright, Cloud Testing, Stakeholder Management, Agile / SAFe, Mentoring, DevOps

About the Role

We are looking for a Principal Engineer — Test Strategy with 18+ years of experience to define, own, and drive the enterprise-wide test strategy and quality engineering vision. You will operate at the intersection of technology leadership, quality architecture, and stakeholder engagement — setting the standards, frameworks, and practices that underpin software quality across the organisation. This is a senior leadership role requiring deep QE expertise, strong strategic thinking, and the ability to influence at the highest levels of the organisation.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and own the enterprise-wide test strategy — establishing quality engineering standards, frameworks, and best practices across all delivery programmes.
• Design and govern test architecture — automation frameworks, tooling standards, CI/CD quality gates, and shift-left testing adoption across engineering teams.
• Lead quality engineering transformation initiatives — driving adoption of AI-augmented testing, intelligent automation, and modern QE practices across the organisation.
• Establish and maintain QE governance — quality metrics, test coverage standards, reporting frameworks, and release quality sign-off processes.
• Engage senior stakeholders — CTO, engineering directors, product leadership — presenting quality strategy, risk assessments, and programme quality status with authority.
• Define and oversee non-functional testing strategy — performance, security, accessibility, and resilience testing standards across enterprise platforms.
• Lead and mentor a community of QE professionals — coaching test leads, automation engineers, and SDETs across multiple delivery teams.
• Contribute to technology strategy — advising on tooling investments, platform quality capabilities, and emerging QE trends including AI / GenAI testing.
• Drive continuous improvement — identifying systemic quality issues, implementing root cause analysis frameworks, and delivering measurable quality improvements.

What We're Looking For

• 18+ years of quality engineering experience with a proven track record of defining and delivering enterprise-wide test strategies at scale.

• Deep expertise across the full QE spectrum — functional, automation, performance, security, API, and AI / GenAI testing.

• Strong test architecture skills — designing automation frameworks, tooling standards, and CI/CD quality integration across large-scale delivery organisations.

• Proven ability to define and govern QE standards — quality metrics, test coverage frameworks, and release quality governance.

• Strong leadership and mentoring capability — developing QE talent, coaching senior engineers, and building high-performing quality engineering communities.

• Excellent stakeholder engagement and communication skills — influencing CTO, engineering directors, and product leadership with clarity and authority.

• Deep Agile / SAFe delivery knowledge — embedding quality engineering practices across large-scale Agile programmes.

• Strong understanding of AI / GenAI testing — LLM evaluation, RAG pipeline testing, and AI-augmented test automation.

• Commercially aware — understanding the business impact of quality risk and using this to drive pragmatic, risk-proportionate quality decisions.

Apply now