Principal QA Engineer (Backend)

TL;DR

Principal QA Engineer (Backend/Golang): Driving a shift-left quality culture for a unified audio and radio experience (Rayo) with an accent on contract-driven testing, API resilience, and schema-first development. Focus on designing multi-layered automation strategies, integrating observability, and mentoring engineers on AI-assisted testing.

Location: Remote-first within the UK, with occasional in-person collaboration (approx. 8 times/year) in Manchester or London.

Company

A large European media business operating digital platforms, print, and audio broadcasting across multiple countries.

What you will do

• Lead architectural design reviews to embed Testability by Design.
• Drive Contract Driven Testing and Schema-First development using OpenAPI/Swagger.
• Design and maintain a multi-layered automation strategy using Playwright and TypeScript.
• Integrate automated regression suites and quality gates into CI/CD pipelines.
• Develop load and performance testing strategies for backend resilience.
• Collaborate with SRE/DevOps to integrate observability using OpenTelemetry or Datadog.

Requirements

• Experience in highly technical QA Automation or Backend Engineering in a shift-left environment.
• Deep knowledge of RESTful architectures, JSON Schemas, or GraphQL.
• Proficiency in Golang or another object-oriented language.
• Experience with asynchronous event-driven architectures (Kafka, SQS) and AWS.
• Proven ability to use AI tooling to generate and refine code.
• Must be based in the UK.

Nice to have

• Load testing experience with k6.
• Knowledge of Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation).
• Familiarity with Docker and Kubernetes.

Culture & Benefits

• Remote-first culture with a focus on flexibility and outcomes.
• 28 days holiday plus bank holidays and volunteer days.
• Access to internal training via Bauer Academy.
• Enhanced parental leave pay.
• Inclusive, people-first environment with regular social gatherings.