Senior SDET - Cape Town
We’re looking for a Senior SDET who’s passionate about quality; not just as a phase, but as a core part of how great software gets built.
Collinson is a global loyalty and benefits company.
We use our expertise and products to craft customer experiences which enable some of the world’s best known brands to acquire, engage and retain the most demanding and choice-rich customers.
In particular, our unique expertise and insight into high earning, frequent travellers allows us to create products and solutions for our clients that inspire greater customer engagement to drive more profitable relationships, enrich their travel experiences, protect what matters and assist in in times of need.
While specialising in Financial Services, Travel and Retail, we also support clients in multiple sectors. We have worked with over 90 airlines, 20 hotel groups and more than 600 financial institutions and banks, with clients including Accor Hotels, Air France KLM, American Express, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Diners Club, Mandarin Oriental, Mastercard, Radisson Hotel Group, Sephora, Visa and Vhi.
We take our 30 years’ experience working with these kinds of household names in over 170 countries, and help our clients to deliver the smarter experiences it takes to differentiate their propositions, and help them win deeper devotion with their customers.
Collinson is a privately-owned entrepreneurial business with 2,000 passionate people working in 20 locations worldwide. Our solutions include Priority Pass, the world’s best known airport experiences programme, while we are also the trusted partner behind many of the leading financial services, airline and hotel brand’s reward programmes and loyalty initiatives.
Purpose of the job
We’re looking for a SDET who’s passionate about quality; not just as a phase, but as a core part of how great software gets built. In this role, you’ll help shape what “great” looks like for our engineering teams, including setting test standards, supporting engineers and making sure quality is everyone’s responsibility. This role requires strong software development skills, deep understanding of distributed systems, and the ability to influence quality across the entire software development lifecycle (SDLC).
You’ll be embedded in a collaborative environment where software is shipped fast, iteratively, and often. Your work will focus on making sure things don’t just work but work well together. You’ll bring clarity, structure and confidence to the way we test by balancing automation with human insight and keeping the end-user in mind.
You would drive the automated testing efforts covering contract testing, smoke testing, regression testing, end-to-end testing ensuring that we deliver fast with full confidence. You’ll bring your considerable knowledge of test automation to help us build new products that are reliable, secure, performant, and resilient.
If you’re curious, love asking the awkward questions, and want to support software engineers build and iterate quickly, you’ll thrive here.
Key Responsibilities
Design, develop, and maintain test automation frameworks from scratch or extend existing ones
Define and uphold the standards for test quality, ensuring consistency and confidence in our releases.
Write high quality, maintainable integration and end-to-end tests that follows production engineering standards.
Build reusable test utilities, mocks, and simulators.
Contribute to and help evolve the overall test strategy for one or more products or services
Partner with engineers, product managers, and delivery leads to embed quality thinking from day one, and not as an after-thought.
Design and oversee test strategies that combine automation, exploratory testing, and regression coverage.
Drive the implementation and evolution of automated testing frameworks, ensuring integration into our CI/CD pipelines.
Own the structure and health of test suites and regression packs, helping teams keep them lean, relevant, and valuable.
Actively test front-end, back-end, API, and distributed microservices using tools like Playwright, Cypress, Postman, RestAssured and other modern frameworks.
Perform and organise performance testing with tools such as K6, JMeter.
Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams to ensure cross-squad functionality and integration is properly tested.
Get involved in the testing cycle, helping to investigate issues, write tests, support on manual QA, and signing-off changes.
Investigate defects and production issues; ensure fixes are validated through automation
Preferred
Computer Science or Information Technology degree, Diploma or similar
CSTAE or ASTQB ISTQB Advanced Certification
Certified Automation Tester (i.e. Cypress, Playwright)
Familiarity with pipeline and event-driven systems (Kafka, AWS EventBridge, AWS Step Functions, queues, streams, Snaplogic)
Non Negotiable
4+ years experience in Test Automation
Strong hands-on experience in building and maintaining test automation frameworks and API testing tools, not just executing them
Confident writing automated tests in Typescript.
Expertise in Designing and Executing End-to-End Test Strategies that aligns with Agile delivery
Solid experience embedding quality early in the SDLC by working closely with Product Managers, Engineers, Principal Engineers and Delivery Managers
Experience working in agile continuous delivery teams, including daily coordination with cross-functional stakeholders to evaluate, prioritize, and drive resolution of defects based on reproducibility, business impact, and release scope
Personal Attributes
Quality mindset – deeply values software quality and strives for continuous improvement across teams
Collaborative nature – works well and constructively challenge engineers, product managers, and delivery managers to embed quality early in the SDLC
Proactive attitude toward continuous improvement, always seeking better ways to optimize automation
Critical thinker – approaches testing with curiosity and rigor; digs deep to uncover root causes
Adaptability – comfortable with change and able to pivot priorities in fast-paced, agile environments
Detail-oriented – thorough in reviewing test cases, strategies, and outcomes without losing sight of the bigger picture
Ownership-driven – takes responsibility for the overall health of the QA process and quality outcomes
Learner - willing to learn and adapt as systems and tools evolve
Interview Process
We want our process to be fair and transparent, so it’s only right that we tell you what the various interview stages are:
Stage 1 – We'll do a screener call with our recruitment team, where you can learn a bit more about Collinson, our values and we can confirm what you’re looking for in a new role.
Stage 2 – We'll do a short call with one of our Engineering Managers for around 30 minutes, who will tell you more about the team, our products, technology and ask questions about your career history and suitability for the role.
Stage 3 – You will do a technical test (at home), and we’ll review your solution and approach to it.
Stage 4 – This is final and main stage, where we’ll meet you for 60-90 minutes, and you’ll get to spend time with different members of the engineering team (Engineering Manager/Lead). We’ll also go through your technical test and ask questions on some of your decisions and implementation. Stage 5 - 60 minute discussion with our Head of Architecture & Engineering
- Division
- Technology & Data
- Role
- Software Engineering
- Locations
- Cape Town
- Remote status
- Hybrid
About Collinson
We use our expertise and products to craft customer experiences. Our range of services helps global brand acquire, engage and retain choice-rich customers.
© 2023 Collinson International Limited. Registered in England & Wales under registration No. 2577557
Registered address : 3 More London Riverside, London, SE1 2AQ, United Kingdom.
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