Staff Quality Engineer (Waitrose Apps)

Embark on a pivotal career journey as a Senior Quality Engineer with one of the UK's most successful omni-channel retailers. This role offers an exceptional opportunity to contribute to high-traffic mobile applications, working within a vast and innovative engineering practice that powers two of the busiest websites in the UK. If you're passionate about elevating quality, coaching teams, and driving engineering excellence, this could be your next significant step.

Advantages: Why This Opportunity Stands Out

• High Impact & Scale: Work on mission-critical mobile applications that drive a significant proportion of sales for a leading retailer. Your contributions will directly influence millions of users across highly trafficked platforms, offering unparalleled exposure and impact within an engineering practice boasting 80+ teams.
• Innovative Quality Culture: Join a team that champions "whole team accountability for quality and continuous testing." This isn't just about finding bugs; it's about embedding quality from inception to production, fostering a proactive and collaborative environment, and implementing modern "shift left/shift right" approaches.
• Leadership & Mentorship Opportunities: Beyond hands-on contributions, a core aspect of this role is mentoring fellow engineers in testing practices, coaching them on quality approaches, deployment, and observability. This is an excellent pathway for those looking to grow into technical leadership or even people management roles within a supportive community.
• Deep Technical Engagement: You'll be deeply embedded in the software engineering lifecycle, contributing to codebase reviews, pipeline configurations, and enhancing coded solutions for unit, functional, and automation tests. This role demands and develops a strong, hands-on technical acumen in mobile app development.
• Commitment to Continuous Learning: The organisation places a strong emphasis on professional development, providing resources and support for engineers to continuously improve their skills and stay abreast of the latest technologies and techniques, regardless of experience.
• Flexible Hybrid Working: Benefit from a flexible working model that primarily splits your time between working from home (within the UK) and London/Bracknell Head Offices, with typical office attendance of 1-2 times a month (up to twice a week if required). This promotes a healthy work-life balance while ensuring collaborative opportunities.
• Unique Employee-Owned Partnership Model: As a "Partner," you'll be part of the UK's largest employee-owned business. This means sharing in the responsibilities, rewards, and successes of the company, fostering a unique culture of collective ownership, respect, and belonging.
• Competitive Compensation: The role offers a competitive salary package, reflecting the seniority and the critical nature of the position within a leading retail group.

Key Considerations: Guiding Your Career Path

• Hybrid Work Commitment: While flexible, candidates must be based in the UK and comfortable with regular travel to London or Bracknell Head Offices as needed, and occasionally to other locations.
• Emphasis on Coaching & Influence: Success in this role requires not only technical expertise but also excellent communication, strong stakeholder management, and a passion for mentoring and influencing engineering teams towards better quality practices and improved engineering approaches.
• Strong Mobile Native Expertise Required: The role demands extensive knowledge and hands-on experience in delivering native mobile apps (iOS and/or Android), including architectural patterns, practical CI/CD, and modern testing tools like XCTest/XCUITest and/or Espresso. This is a highly specialized, mobile-focused quality engineering role.
• Proactive Learning & Adaptability: The expectation for continuous skill improvement means candidates should be self-driven, curious, and committed to staying current with evolving technologies, techniques, and engineering best practices.
• Broad Quality Scope: You'll be involved in the full lifecycle, from leading elaboration activities (e.g., three amigos sessions) and understanding business needs, to reviewing codebases, configuring pipelines, and monitoring services in production. This includes a strong focus on non-functional aspects like performance, resource usage, accessibility, and security.
• Thorough Application Process: Be prepared for a comprehensive recruitment journey, including an online assessment, technical evaluation, and multiple interview rounds, designed to ensure a strong fit for this senior role.

Who Should Apply?

This opportunity is ideal for a highly experienced, hands-on Senior Quality Engineer with a proven track record in native mobile app quality assurance and automation. If you thrive in an environment where you can both contribute technically and elevate the skills of your colleagues, advocate for engineering excellence, and are looking to be part of a unique, employee-owned culture, this role offers a rewarding and impactful career path.