*STRICTLY NO RECRUITERS*

We’re looking for an experienced and forward thinking Quality Engineering (QE) Manager to lead the transformation of our existing QA function into a modern, automation first QE team in our Timisoara office. This is a strategic and hands on leadership role where you’ll drive the adoption of an SDET model, champion engineering practices across the quality lifecycle, and provide clear visibility into test coverage and release readiness for stakeholders across the business.

We are evolving from a traditional QA setup to a Quality Engineering model and we’re looking for someone who can lead this journey through modernising tooling, redefining team culture and aligning our quality efforts with agile delivery and continuous deployment.

This role will help shape how we test and how the business experiences quality; bringing clarity, speed and confidence to every release.

This is a hybrid role and the successful candidate based in Romania must be willing to travel to the Timisoara office a minimum of one day a month.

Responsibilities

• Lead the evolution of our QA team into a modern Quality Engineering function, strengthening automation, engineering discipline, and test strategy.
• Champion automation-first practices across UI, API, integration and regression layers, evolving our Cypress.io based framework.
• Design and implement test strategies tightly integrated with CI/CD pipelines.
• Evaluate and adopt emerging technologies including AI assisted and Playwright MCP style tools to improve efficiency and coverage.
• Build visibility and confidence through meaningful metrics, coverage dashboards and release readiness reports that clearly show what’s been tested and why it matters.
• Partner with Developers, DevOps, and Product Owners to embed testing early in the SDLC (“shift left”) and integrate security and compliance testing into delivery pipelines.
• Mentor and develop QA engineers into SDET style professionals with coding and automation skills.
• Optimise testing effort balancing manual, automated and AI driven testing to reduce repetition and increase speed.
• Drive continuous improvement through retrospectives, data led insights and practical process refinement.
• Advocate for quality across the organisation, ensuring QA/QE is seen as a proactive partner, not a gatekeeper.

Required

• 10+ years in a QA role within a web development environment
• 5+ years leading QA teams, transforming teams through automation and modern QE practices
• Strong technical knowledge and hands on experience with Cypress.io (or similar modern JS-based testing frameworks).
• Proven experience designing and implementing test automation frameworks and strategies within CI/CD pipelines.
• Confident using test coverage tools, dashboards and reporting tools to improve visibility for stakeholders.
• Solid JavaScript knowledge and ideally some exposure to PHP or Laravel-based backends preferred.
• Strong understanding of agile and lean methodologies (Scrum, Kanban).
• Proven ability to mentor, coach and grow QA engineers into SDETs and lead cultural change.
• Experience in exploratory, cross browser and accessibility testing.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.
• Willing to travel occasionally to our Belfast HQ.
• Able to work in Romania without visa sponsorship.

Desirable

• Experience implementing Playwright MCP, test orchestration, or similar AI-augmented frameworks.
• Familiarity with Jenkins, or AWS CodePipeline for test automation integration.
• Exposure to observability tools (e.g. Grafana, Kibana, Datadog) to link production data to test coverage insights.
• ISTQB or equivalent certification
• Experience in fintech, e-commerce, or online comparison environments

Academics

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, IT or a related discipline, with good or very good academic results (equivalent to a UK 2:1 or above)

Remuneration:

Seopa offers a competitive salary and comprehensive benefits package, including:

• 13th Salary
• Free private medical insurance
• Full access to our nominated e-learning platform
• Team building and company dinner events
• Sports plan

About Seopa

This is an excellent time to join our multi-award-winning company as we continue to evolve and innovate across the business and grow in new markets in our mission to help the world find better deals. The right candidate will have an opportunity to work in a friendly, dynamic and inclusive working environment with like-minded, talented and passionate individuals with options for hybrid working giving the flexibility to work a mix of in the office and at home.

An indigenous company founded in 2003 with branches in Belfast (Head Office) and Timisoara, we are an industry leader in creating and hosting insurance, finance and utility price comparison engines. In addition to providing our software and systems to other companies, we operate our own insurance comparison brands - Quotezone.co.uk and CompareNI.com.

Used by more than 3 million people annually, our systems enable insurance providers to secure business within their target markets and empower consumers to easily identify those providers who meet their financial product requirements at market leading prices. Our Affinity Partnership arrangements also facilitate other companies to increase the range of services offered (and revenue generated) via their websites. Our products are used by over 400 financial partners in the insurance, finance and utilities industry.

Our success has been recognised by a series of awards including six consecutive Deloitte Technology Fast 50 awards, a Deloitte EMEA Technology Fast500 award, several prestigious Deloitte Best Managed Companies awards (2017, 2018, 2019), three Gold Standard Best Managed Companies awards (2020, 2021 2022) and Platinum Standard Best Managed Companies award 2023, 2024 and 2025.