This is a Permanent, vacancy that will close in {x} days at {xx:xx} BST.
The Vacancy
Opportunity
This is an opportunity to join IRIS Software Group as we transform into an AI-first company delivering cloud-native solutions that impact millions of lives globally. IRIS produces an integrated suite of mission-critical software applications spanning accountancy, HR, payroll, education, and business operations. You will be working as part of an Agile team to deliver innovative solutions to user stories and requirements, contributing to our modernisation journey that serves over 100,000 customers across 135 countries.
The role is challenging and dynamic, with key deadlines to be met as we accelerate our cloud transformation and implement next-generation technologies. You’ll need to embrace continuous learning and bring a focused attitude to tasks that directly enable businesses, schools, and organisations to work smarter and more efficiently.
You will be supported in your career growth by a highly experienced team, comprehensive learning opportunities, and a vibrant technical community committed to creating exceptional solutions that make a real difference in how our customers operate and succeed.
Role Purpose
As a Senior Software Test Engineer, you will help foster a collaborative culture within the team, sharing knowledge and learning. You will contribute to technology and process decisions, try out new ideas, experiment, and embrace a fail-fast mentality. Champion a quality first approach to software development and ensuring that quality is maintained throughout the cycle.
Key Responsibilities
Collaboration & Communication
Engage in story refinement sessions with Product Owners, providing technical expertise for estimation and risk assessment
Partner with cross-functional teams (product, design, engineering) to deliver comprehensive solutions that meet business objectives
Influence technology choices based on deep technical understanding and business context
Proactively identify and inspire resolution of technical debt and system improvements
Quality & Standards
Champion comprehensive quality practices including TDD/BDD standards, automated testing strategies, and shift-left testing
Establish testing tooling and practices used consistently within the team
Lead troubleshooting efforts for complex software issues and production incidents
Growth & Development
Mentor junior and mid-level engineers actively to raise team capability and technical standards
Lead team code review standards establishment and drive quality improvements across team deliverables
Drive continuous improvement and champion responsible AI adoption with team governance practices
Required Experience & Skills
Technical Skills
Test automation: Proficiency with UI and API test automation tools (e.g. Playwright, Selenium, Reqnroll / SpecFlow, RestSharp, etc.)
Performance Testing: Experience with performance testing tools (e.g. JMeter, Gatling, K6)
CI/CD Design: Design test automation CI/CD architecture for team deliverables. Establish test deployment strategies and optimise pipeline performance for team efficiency.
AI-Assisted Software Engineering: Experience with integrating AI tools (Cursor, Copilot, Devin, Claude Code, etc.) in engineering practices testing and debugging. Using them critically and responsibly to improve quality, productivity and decision-making.
Quality & Testing: Drive TDD/BDD adoption in team testing strategy and quality governance, and implement comprehensive automated testing with continuous improvement
Observability: Familiarity with application performance metric analysis on platforms like DataDog, Splunk, NewRelic, Grafana, etc.
Experience Requirements
5-7 years of professional software testing experience
Proven ability in testing complex, multi-system solutions
Experience testing highly scalable, internet-facing applications serving millions of users
Demonstrated ability to design, document and implement functional and performance testing architectures
Track record of driving quality excellence, establishing standards, influencing technology choices, and cross team collaboration.
Active quality mentoring experience.
Soft Skills
Strong analysis and problem-solving skills
Excellent verbal and written communication skills with ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
Technical leadership and influencing skills without formal authority
Ability to utilise technical skills to develop and coach others through mentoring and knowledge sharing
Collaborative approach and ability to work as part of wider Engineering and QA teams
Conflict resolution skills for technical disagreements and cross-team coordination
Learning mindset with ability to adapt to new industry trends
Desirable Skills
Experience with Performance Testing (for example Load Profiling/Modelling, Load Testing, Stress Testing, Spike Testing, etc).
Experience with the introduction and migration to new Testing Frameworks
Experience working with regulated or complex domains (finance, health, govtech) with audit requirements
Exposure to Security Testing
Experience designing high-quality AI interactions through effective prompt engineering, efficient token usage, and optimisation techniques, combined with practical use of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to integrate AI systems with tools and services for richer, automated workflows
Experience with event-driven architectures
Advanced cloud certifications in Azure or AWS
Key Relationships
Internal: Engineering Teams, Engineering Managers, Product Owners/Managers, QA Teams, DevOps Teams, Architecture Teams
Leadership: Engineering Lead, QA Team Lead, Engineering Director, Product Leadership
Benefits & Why Join IRIS
Compensation & Benefits:
- Competitive salary
- Generous holiday allowance
- Private medical healthcare
- Life assurance
- Pension (location dependent)
Professional Development:
- Strong global brand with an innovative technical environment
- Senior technical leadership development opportunities
- Conference speaking and industry engagement opportunities
- Advanced certification and training support
- Technical community leadership roles
Culture & Environment:
- Great Place to Work certified
- Best Workplaces for Women recognition
- Technical leadership and innovation focus
- Flexible working arrangements and excellent work-life balance
- Opportunity to shape technical direction and mentor others
- Additional benefits: Cycle to Work, charity days, discount schemes
About IRIS
As one of the UK’s largest privately held software companies, IRIS Software Group exists to simplify the lives of businesses, schools and organisations.
IRIS provides software solutions and services that substantially enhance operational compliance, efficiency and accuracy, empowering the users of our technology to look forward with certainty and confidence.
Over 4 million parents use our software to connect with their child’s school, 18% of UK employees are paid via an IRIS payroll solution, 50,000 SMEs use IRIS cloud bookkeeping and 21,000 firms rely on us for legislative compliance.
Our operational software is the invisible but essential beating heart of our customers’ businesses, supporting them in a range of objectives, from maintaining legislative compliance to boosting engagement with stakeholders and enhancing productivity.
It’s vital these mission-critical functions work first time, every time.
That’s why IRIS helps businesses run the tough stuff, stay compliant and get operational tasks done right first time, every time – so they can focus on productivity and growth.
IRIS is a company built on hiring the best people; our people are our greatest assets.
They enable us to be the innovative, market-leading, and high-performing company that we are today.
We’re delighted to be certified as a Great Place to Work and one of the UK’s Best Workplaces for Women.
These accolades confirm that our employees have a consistently positive experience at IRIS, with the certifications considering employee wellbeing, diversity and inclusion, trust in management, effective communication and recognition/reward.
IRIS is committed to engaging, rewarding and empowering our employees, and this is central to what we do.
This is why we work to create an environment where employees feel like they are part of a team.
Why work for IRIS?
The Benefits
Developing your career
We believe in creating a culture of engagement and reward to develop your potential and offer long-term career success. We do this by:
Supporting our managers to be great leaders, providing inspirational management resources and offering dedicated management development training.
Rewarding individual excellence through dedicated initiatives and Employee Awards for demonstrating our values.
Offering regular training and development programmes tailored to each employee’s development needs and providing a commitment to a ‘learning culture’ which shares knowledge, best practice and our long-standing expertise between employees.
We’re committed to a culture of continuous improvement and listen to our employees via regular feedback sessions and employee engagement surveys.
Our employees love the colleagues they work with. We promote a positive environment where our people feel comfortable, make friends and support each other.
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