Back to jobs
Compass Group
Lead Qa Engineer
Birmingham Hybrid 10+ yrs exp Food and Beverage Services 57,661 employees
Quality EngineeringSoftware TestingTest AutomationAutomation FrameworksAPI Testing
Requirements
Requires significant experience in software testing, automation, and quality engineering, including leadership in agile, product-led, or DevOps environments. Candidates should have strong knowledge of automation frameworks, API and end-to-end testing, CI/CD integration, test strategy, defect investigation, and technical leadership; experience in performance, resilience, security, or accessibility testing is advantageous.
Job Description
Lead QA Engineer
Location: Parklands, Birmingham
Working pattern: Hybrid
Contract: Permanent
Salary: Competitive salary and benefits
Lead quality engineering at Compass Group UK & Ireland
We’re building a modern, in-house quality engineering capability and are looking for an experienced Lead QA Engineer to shape and lead our approach across Digital & Technology.
This is a senior, hands-on role where you’ll set the technical direction for quality engineering, lead our move towards automation-first testing and embed quality throughout the product lifecycle.
Working across multiple product squads, you’ll provide technical leadership to QA Engineers and collaborate with Product, Software Engineering, Platform Engineering, SRE and Service Operations to ensure our digital products are reliable, scalable and ready for release.
What you’ll be doing
Why join us?
Compass Group UK & Ireland serves millions of meals across business, education, healthcare, sport and defence.
You’ll join our quality engineering capability at an exciting stage of its development, with the opportunity to establish modern standards, influence how products are built and create a measurable impact across the organisation.
If you’re a senior quality engineering leader who combines strategic direction with hands-on technical expertise, we’d love to hear from you.
Location: Parklands, Birmingham
Working pattern: Hybrid
Contract: Permanent
Salary: Competitive salary and benefits
Lead quality engineering at Compass Group UK & Ireland
We’re building a modern, in-house quality engineering capability and are looking for an experienced Lead QA Engineer to shape and lead our approach across Digital & Technology.
This is a senior, hands-on role where you’ll set the technical direction for quality engineering, lead our move towards automation-first testing and embed quality throughout the product lifecycle.
Working across multiple product squads, you’ll provide technical leadership to QA Engineers and collaborate with Product, Software Engineering, Platform Engineering, SRE and Service Operations to ensure our digital products are reliable, scalable and ready for release.
What you’ll be doing
- Defining and delivering our quality engineering strategy and roadmap
- Leading the development of scalable test automation frameworks and standards
- Coaching QA Engineers and building a strong quality engineering community
- Embedding automated quality gates into CI/CD pipelines
- Establishing risk-based approaches to functional and non-functional testing
- Challenging requirements, designs and acceptance criteria to identify risks early
- Overseeing release assurance and production-readiness evidence
- Leading complex defect investigations and root cause analysis
- Using quality metrics and defect trends to drive improvement
- Evaluating AI-assisted testing tools and emerging quality practices
- Significant experience in software testing, automation and quality engineering
- Experience leading QA within agile, product-led or DevOps environments
- Strong knowledge of automation frameworks, API and end-to-end testing
- Experience integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines
- The ability to define test strategies for complex products or platforms
- Experience leading defect investigations and improving quality outcomes
- Strong technical leadership, coaching and stakeholder management skills
- A strategic mindset combined with a willingness to remain hands-on
Why join us?
Compass Group UK & Ireland serves millions of meals across business, education, healthcare, sport and defence.
You’ll join our quality engineering capability at an exciting stage of its development, with the opportunity to establish modern standards, influence how products are built and create a measurable impact across the organisation.
If you’re a senior quality engineering leader who combines strategic direction with hands-on technical expertise, we’d love to hear from you.
Skills
Quality EngineeringSoftware TestingTest AutomationAutomation FrameworksAPI TestingEnd-to-End TestingCI/CD PipelinesAgileDevOpsTest StrategyRisk-Based TestingRelease AssuranceDefect InvestigationRoot Cause AnalysisTechnical LeadershipCoaching
About Compass Group
Compass Group is a global leader in food services operating in over 25 countries with around 590,000 employees worldwide and generating underlying revenues of over $46 billion for the 2025 fiscal year. Our vision is to be a world-class provider of contract food services and support services, renowned for our great people, our great service, and our great results.
View company profile →