Lead Test Automation Engineer

About Inspiretec

Inspiretec delivers enterprise-scale travel technology platforms serving some of the largest leisure travel operators in the UK. Our end-to-end solutions spanning reservations CRM and digital customer engagement support high transaction volumes complex integrations and business-critical journeys particularly during peak booking periods.

Our platform operates in a highly connected ecosystem integrating with multiple third-party systems suppliers and data sources. Reliability performance and release confidence are critical to the businesses we support.

As we continue to scale we are strengthening Quality Engineering as a core discipline to enable faster safer and more predictable delivery across our enterprise platform.

The Opportunity

We are looking for a hands-on Lead Test Automation Engineer to take ownership of Inspiretecs automation integration and performance testing capability.

We have established a foundation in UI automation using Playwright alongside early-stage API automation investment. This role will lead the next stage of maturity: improving coverage increasing reliability reducing manual testing effort and embedding automation as a standard part of how we deliver software.

A key strategic priority for Inspiretec is to increase delivery cadence without increasing risk. This role will be central to achieving that enabling more frequent releases through robust automation repeatable integration testing approaches and performance testing that reflects real-world demand.

This is a leadership role with genuine influence. You will set standards drive adoption across teams and grow a sustainable quality engineering capability through a combination of hiring mentoring and upskilling.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy & Ownership

• Own and evolve Inspiretecs automation and performance testing strategy
• Increase automation coverage across both new feature development and regression suites
• Reduce manual testing effort across delivery teams
• Embed automation within the development lifecycle (Definition of Done PR validation CI/CD quality gates)
• Establish a clear strategy for testing complex third-party integrations
• Implement approaches where full test environments may not exist (mocking stubbing service virtualisation)
• Define and implement a reliable scalable test data management strategy
• Align quality metrics with deployment frequency defect escape rates and manual effort reduction

Hands-On Engineering

• Design build and maintain scalable automation frameworks (Playwright and supporting tooling)
• Deliver automated testing across:
  • Functional UI
  • API and microservices
  • Integration
  • End-to-End
  • Regression
• Mature API automation using frameworks such as Karate or equivalent
• Lead performance and load testing initiatives (e.g. JMeter or similar)
• Design realistic load models reflecting peak booking and high-traffic scenarios
• Improve reliability reduce test flakiness and enhance reporting

Leadership Adoption & Capability Building

• Establish and promote best practices standards and reusable assets across teams
• Mentor engineers and provide hands-on coaching in automation and quality engineering
• Support recruitment of automation specialists where required
• Identify opportunities to retrain and upskill existing employees in automation practices
• Drive adoption of automation across delivery teams and ensure it is sustained over time
• Promote quality as a shared engineering responsibility across engineering and product

AI & Acceleration

• Evaluate and introduce AI-assisted approaches to accelerate test creation and maintenance
• Use intelligent tooling for coverage analysis impact assessment and defect trend insights
• Apply AI pragmatically to improve feedback speed and reduce manual effort (without compromising reliability)

What Were Looking For

Essential

• Strong hands-on automation engineering experience in complex distributed systems
• Proven experience building and scaling automation frameworks (beyond scripting)
• Strong experience with modern UI automation tooling (e.g. Playwright Cypress or similar)
• Strong API test automation experience (Karate or equivalent frameworks)
• Strong programming skills aligned to a .NET-first environment:
  • C# (.NET) and/or TypeScript/JavaScript
• Proven performance/load testing experience (JMeter LoadRunner or similar)
• Experience designing integration testing strategies for systems with external dependencies
• Experience implementing effective test data management approaches
• Experience embedding automation into CI/CD pipelines
• Experience mentoring engineers and influencing engineering standards

Desirable

• Experience with service virtualisation or API mocking tools
• Experience working in integration-heavy enterprise platforms
• Security testing exposure
• Consultancy or multi-stakeholder delivery experience
• Experience applying AI tools within software engineering workflows

Why Join Inspiretec

• A high-impact leadership role with genuine influence and autonomy
• The opportunity to shape quality engineering across an enterprise platform
• Complex integration-heavy systems where automation and strategy truly matter
• Hybrid working from Cardiff or fully remote within the UK
• Competitive salary and benefits
• A collaborative forward-thinking engineering culture