Quality Assurance Engineer

About the job

QA Engineer

Permanent

Based in London (Hybrid working with 3 days in the office and 2 days at home)

We are looking for a QA Engineer to join our digital team. You will be responsible for ensuring the quality and reliability of our e-commerce websites and mobile applications through manual and automated testing. You will work closely with developers, product owners and business stakeholders to deliver releases that meet business requirements and provide a reliable customer experience.

What you will be doing

• Review requirements and acceptance criteria, identifying gaps and potential risks early.
• Create, maintain and execute test cases for new features, enhancements and defect fixes.
• Perform functional, regression, integration, exploratory and cross-browser/device testing.
• Test key e-commerce journeys, including search, basket, checkout, payments, customer accounts and order management.
• Validate APIs and use database queries to verify data accuracy.
• Log and track defects in Jira, providing clear reproduction steps and supporting evidence.
• Develop and maintain automated tests and support their integration into CI/CD pipelines.
• Support UAT, release readiness assessments and post-release smoke testing.
• Communicate testing progress, blockers and quality risks.
• Contribute to improvements in test coverage, documentation and QA processes.

What we need from you

Essential

• Experience testing websites and/or mobile applications.
• Strong understanding of testing principles, defect management and Agile delivery.
• Experience writing test cases and managing defects using Jira and a test management tool such as Zephyr.
• Familiarity with API testing using Postman or similar tools.
• Basic SQL skills for data validation.
• Practical experience with, or a willingness to develop skills in, automation tools such as Playwright+ J Unit 5 + Maven.
• Strong analytical skills, attention to detail and clear communication.
• Experience in e-commerce, payment integrations and order management systems.
• Familiarity with Git and CI/CD tools such as Jenkins.
• Exposure to accessibility, performance and native mobile app testing.

Desirable

• Working knowledge of a programming language used for automation, such as JavaScript, TypeScript or Java.
• Experience testing APIs using Postman or equivalent tools.
• Basic SQL knowledge for validating data and investigating issues.
• Familiarity with Git and CI/CD pipelines, such as Jenkins.
• Experience testing iOS and Android applications.
• Awareness of accessibility testing and WCAG guidelines.
• Experience in performance testing or validating third-party integrations.
• ISTQB Foundation certification or an equivalent testing qualification.

Person Profile

• Proactive and detail-oriented.
• Strong analytical skills.
• Take ownership.
• Strong and clear communication skills, both written and spoken.
• Collaborative team player.

Why work for Waterstones

Waterstones is the cornerstone of bookselling across the UK and Ireland. Joining Waterstones means being an active part in a success story that began in 1982, and books are as popular now as the day we started.

Trading across the UK, Ireland and Europe, we are present in over 350 shopping locations, where Waterstones continues to thrive, each year actively pursuing a programme of new bookshop openings. Online at Waterstones.com, we meanwhile mirror the essence of our bookshops, further showcasing the unique enthusiasm and knowledge of our booksellers.

If you have the relevant essential experience and you are interested, we would love to hear from you.

Waterstones is committed to encouraging equity, diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and is dedicated toward eliminating unlawful discrimination.

Our aim is to be truly representative of all sections of society and our customers, and for each employee to feel fully respected and to be able to give their best.

Diversity Statement

At Waterstones, we are committed to creating a workplace that is fair and inclusive to people from all backgrounds, perspectives and experiences, and we strive to promote an inclusive work culture.

We are working hard to ensure our recruitment processes are free from bias, and our aim is to be truly representative of all sections of society and our customers, and for each employee to feel fully respected and able to give their best.

Reasonable Adjustments

We understand that some disabled applicants may, due to the nature of their disability, find some parts of the recruitment process challenging. If you need any reasonable adjustments during any part of the interview process, please make these known either to your interviewer or the person you liaise with when setting up your interview.