Senior Qa Engineer

Our Vision: To become the global platform for transacting commercial property. Imagine a “Transact it now” button for a property, where your entire leasing/investment transaction is digital, from marketing, and matching through to negotiation and signing. Or a world where property portfolios can be packaged up and digitally traded like any other asset class. That world is Kato.

Our Product: Collaborating closely with clients, industry leaders, and our strategic investors, we've developed a digital commercial real estate ecosystem used by approximately 80% of the UK's commercial real estate market. This platform stands on the pillars of trust, security, and transparency, offering a singular solution that encompasses all aspects of a commercial real estate transaction, including marketing, matching, tracking, reporting, negotiating, signing, and closing deals.

However, we aren’t stopping there!

We have embarked on ambitious plans to strengthen our existing product offering and market share, expand our stakeholder base within our ecosystem, and sustain our swift expansion throughout Europe and internationally.

We're looking for the brightest minds and most passionate individuals to help us get there!

The Role

Kato collaborates with major real estate agencies globally and holds a significant presence in nearly 80% of the UK market. In the role of a Senior QA Engineer at Kato, you will be crucial in ensuring the quality and success of our services as our client base grows within our dynamic ecosystem.

The Senior QA Engineer will be a key player within the Quality Assurance team, dedicated to ensuring high standards in the deployment processes for new and existing clients. This role involves enhancing product quality through rigorous testing protocols, facilitating efficient data integration, and guiding clients through the setup process to ensure smooth transitions and early system adoption.

The successful candidate will collaborate closely with both clients and internal teams, playing a critical role in bridging the gap from pre-sale assessments to implementation, ultimately supporting customer success and account management through meticulous quality assurance practices.

Key Responsibilities

• Automated Test Development: Design, develop, and maintain automated test scripts and frameworks, integrating them with CI/CD pipelines to support continuous and efficient testing processes.
• Test Planning and Strategy: Develop comprehensive test plans and strategies based on software requirements and technical specifications, and collaborate with development teams to ensure thorough test coverage of product features and functionalities.
• Quality Assurance and Control: Conduct functional, regression, performance, security, usability, and compatibility testing to identify and document defects, leading bug tracking, reporting, and management efforts, collaborating closely with development to prioritise and resolve issues.
• Performance and Security Testing: Perform performance testing to evaluate application responsiveness, throughput, reliability, and scalability, and conduct basic security assessments, collaborating with specialised security testing teams to ensure application security against potential threats.
• Continuous Improvement: Continuously review and enhance testing processes, tools, and methodologies to improve efficiency and effectiveness, while staying updated on the latest testing technologies, tools, and best practices to ensure testing practices remain current.
• Team Collaboration and Leadership: Collaborate with development, product management, and other teams to integrate quality throughout the software development lifecycle, mentor junior testers and developers in automation techniques, and lead cross-functional teams in defining project scopes, milestones, and deadlines for testing activities.
• Test Environment and Data Management: Manage test environments by overseeing setup, configuration, and data preparation, ensuring availability of test data and resources while maintaining compliance with data protection regulations.
• Documentation and Reporting: Document all test cases, results, and metrics, prepare detailed reports on testing activities including execution progress and bug statistics, and effectively communicate test results, risk assessments, and quality metrics to stakeholders and team members.
• Agile Participation: Participate in Agile ceremonies, providing testing insights, and advocate for quality assurance best practices to ensure high-quality product delivery within Agile processes.

Candidate Profile

Technical Proficiency:

• Expertise in programming languages relevant to test automation, such as Java, Python, JavaScript or C#.
• Strong understanding of software QA methodologies, tools, and processes.
• Experience with test automation frameworks like Selenium, TestNG, JUnit, or similar.
• Knowledge of API testing tools (Postman, Rest-Assured) and strategies.
• Familiarity with continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) practices and tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI).
• Proficiency in SQL and databases to verify data integrity and manipulate test data.
• Understanding of web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) and web testing tools.

Analytical and Problem-Solving Skills:

• Ability to identify, analyse, and resolve complex software defects.
• Skill in designing test cases and test plans that cover a wide range of scenarios, including edge cases.
• Capacity to debug code, analyse failures, and trace root causes in conjunction with development teams.

Quality Assurance Best Practices:

• Deep knowledge of software testing principles, including functional, performance, regression, and acceptance testing.
• Experience with developing and maintaining automated test suites in line with software development cycles.
• Understanding of security testing principles and vulnerability assessment tools.

Communication and Collaboration:

• Strong verbal and written communication skills to effectively articulate test findings, risks, and reports to team members and stakeholders.
• Experience in working closely with software developers, business analysts, and product managers to understand requirements and implement effective testing strategies.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, agile environment and manage multiple priorities.

Leadership and Mentoring:

• Experience in leading QA projects, managing timelines, and delivering high-quality outputs.
• Ability to mentor junior team members, sharing knowledge and best practices in software testing.
• Capacity to contribute to continuous improvement initiatives, enhancing testing processes, and tools.

Tools and Technologies:

• Familiarity with version control systems (e.g., Git).
• Experience with Docker or Kubernetes for containerised applications testing.
• Knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) and testing in cloud environments.
• Understanding of performance testing tools (JMeter, LoadRunner) and strategies.

Adaptability and Continuous Learning:

• Willingness to stay updated with the latest in testing methodologies, tools, and technologies.
• Adaptability to rapidly changing technologies and environments.

Ideal candidate profile

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• Good knowledge of relational databases, version control tools, and developing web services.
• A can-do attitude and the ability to adapt to new challenges
• Have worked with AI technologies related to Quality Assurance
• Experience in managing large test cases with 500+ test cases
• Experience with leading the team including making technical decisions to be adopted by the team
• Expert knowledge of relational databases (MySQL)
• Solid problem-solving skills and the ability to work effectively in a team environment.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to clearly articulate technical concepts.
• Experience with QAOps

Our tech stack:

• PHP, Laravel
• React
• MySQL
• Amazon web services
• AI based end-to-end test

Interview process:

• 30 mins online test
• 120 mins video call with the Head of Engineering
• Offer stage

Working at Kato

• A role at the forefront of the digital transformation in the commercial real estate industry.
• The opportunity to work with a dynamic, rapidly expanding global client base.
• Collaboration with a team of passionate, innovative professionals.
• A supportive, growth-oriented work environment.

We want you to be aligned with and incentivised by Kato's success, so we offer a competitive salary, an Apple laptop, all the software you need to thrive, and…

• 25 days annual leave
• Extra “life” days; a duvet day, a life-event day, your birthday off, 2 days’ pawternity
• Enhanced maternity and paternity leave policy
• Healthcare package (including Dental & Optical care)
• Training & support provided
• Enrolment onto our company pension plan
• Casual dress code
• Snazzy offices in Soho and Bracknell with games & refreshments
• Summer & Christmas parties, plus ad hoc social events and highly competitive office Bake Off

At Kato, we're dedicated to fostering an inclusive workplace that values diversity in age, gender, race, orientation, beliefs, abilities, ethnicity, and perspectives.

We prioritise everyone's voice, ensuring it's heard and respected.

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Pay: £45,000.00-£55,000.00 per year

Ability to commute/relocate:

• London: reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting work (preferred)

Education:

• Bachelor's (preferred)

Experience:

• QA engineer: 7 years (preferred)

Work authorisation:

• United Kingdom (preferred)

Work Location: Hybrid remote in London

Application deadline: 27/05/2024