Principal QA Engineer

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Type: permanent

Location: Newcastle Upon Tyne

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PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

As a Senior Principal QA Engineer, you will play a strategic role in ensuring the delivery of high-quality software by third parties working in partnership with BBC leaders across Product Group.

You’ll apply an understanding of digital products and technologies to be responsible for shaping and driving quality standards in relation to work with partners as well as influencing internal quality strategies. You’ll collaborate closely with product, engineering, test and design teams throughout the Product Development Lifecycle (PDLC) and work in lock-step with Test leadership.

Your deep understanding of quality assurance best practices, together with your knowledge of software development will be critical in shaping scalable, efficient, and reliable solutions that deliver value for our audiences.

WHY JOIN THE TEAM

Join a team where quality is not just a buzzword but a strategic priority. As a Senior Principal QA Engineer within Product Group’s Enablement team, you'll be at the heart of shaping how the BBC assures the quality of its exceptional software experiences through trusted third-party partnerships.

You'll collaborate with cross-functional teams across product, engineering, test, and design, influencing quality standards that impact millions of users. This is a unique opportunity to drive meaningful change, work with passionate professionals, and help define scalable, audience-focused solutions in one of the world’s most respected media organisations.

YOUR KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND IMPACT

• In partnership with Test and Engineering leadership across Product Group, you will lead the design and implementation of test strategies across multiple products supported through third party suppliers. • Champion quality throughout the product development lifecycle (PDLC), from requirements analysis to deployment and maintenance. • Work with leadership across Engineering – both in the BBC and with partners - to embed best practices, such as integrating automated quality checks into CI/CD pipelines and agile workflows. • Define and maintain quality metrics and KPIs to measure and improve software reliability and performance. • Evaluate and implement new tools, technologies, and methodologies to enhance testing capabilities. • Support initiatives to reduce defect leakage and production incidents • Advocate for testability, observability and quality in architecture and design discussions.

As one of Product Group’s most senior technical leaders, you will mentor aspirant technical leaders across Product Engineering and be a visible technical leader for that community.

YOUR SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

ESSENTIAL CRITERIA:

• Proven experience in senior-level or principal QA roles , with a strong track record of leading quality engineering or testing in complex software environments impacting multiple teams including either web or mobile front end testing experience. • Deep understanding of the SDLC, agile methodologies, and DevOps practices and familiarity with shift left practices. • Familiarity with the benefits and challenges involved in test automation frameworks and opinions about how you see generative AI solutions playing a role in this space in coming years (e.g., Selenium, Cypress, Playwright) and scripting languages (e.g., Python, JavaScript). • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a keen eye for detail. • Experience with hands on functional and exploratory testing • Strong understanding of non-functional testing practices, including performance and security • Excellent communication and leadership skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate across teams.

DESIRED BUT NOT REQUIRED:

• Experience in cloud-native applications and microservices architecture. • Familiarity with AWS services • Familiarity with performance monitoring tooling

If you can bring some of these skills and experience, along with transferable strengths, we’d love to hear from you and encourage you to apply.

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