Senior Test Engineer

Senior Test Engineer –

Automation and Non-Functional Testing (AWS / Performance)

Programme Name: Logistics Commodities & Services Transformation (LCST)

Location: The role is based in our Bristol office

About the Role

We are looking for a capable Senior Test Engineer with approximately 10 years of overall software testing experience, including 2–4 years of hands-on experience in non-functional testing and test automation, and the confidence to take ownership of these areas to ensure our cloud-native applications are fast, reliable, and scalable. In this role, you will design automated test suites, execute performance and load tests, and build synthetic monitoring solutions within an AWS environment.

You will work closely with developers and DevOps engineers to catch bottlenecks early and maintain high system availability.

While this is a hands-on technical role rather than a formal line-management position, you will act as the go-to subject matter expert for performance and automation, helping shape our testing strategy and supporting junior team members.

Key Responsibilities:

• Manage the Non-Functional Test Phase: Able to run and manage the non-functional test phase end to end, including planning, coordinating test execution, monitoring progress, managing risks and defects, and reporting outcomes and test closure.

• Lead Performance & Non-Functional Testing: Take end-to-end ownership of designing, scripting, and executing load, stress, endurance, and spike tests using Apache JMeter to uncover bottlenecks and validate scalability.
• Drive Test Automation: Build, maintain, and enhance automated functional and API test frameworks, ensuring smooth integration into our CI/CD pipelines.
• Own Synthetic Monitoring: Design, deploy, and manage automated synthetic checks using Amazon CloudWatch Synthetics (Canaries) to continuously validate critical user journeys and API health.
• Observability & Metrics: Build and maintain clear, real-time dashboards in Grafana and AWS CloudWatch to track test execution, system telemetry, latency, and resource utilisation.
• Technical Leadership & Collaboration: Act as the quality champion within Agile ceremonies, collaborating with developers and DevOps engineers to define non-functional requirements (NFRs), conduct root cause analysis, and mentor junior testers.

Required Skills & Experience:

• Proven Hands-On Experience: Substantial overall commercial experience in software testing, including strong hands-on experience in non-functional/performance testing and test automation.

• Technical Ownership: Demonstrated experience leading testing efforts for projects or features, defining test plans, and communicating risks clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Performance Testing: Strong practical skills in Apache JMeter, including custom scripting, correlation, parameterisation, and distributed load testing.
• AWS Cloud Ecosystem: Hands-on working knowledge of core AWS services (such as EC2, ECS/EKS, Lambda, S3, RDS, and API Gateway) and how to monitor them under load.
• Monitoring & Observability: Practical experience configuring AWS CloudWatch Canaries and building insightful visual dashboards in Grafana (using Prometheus, InfluxDB, or CloudWatch data sources).
• Test Automation: Proficiency in writing maintainable automated UI or API tests using modern frameworks (e.g., Playwright, Cypress, Selenium, RestAssured, or PyTest) in languages like Python, Java, or TypeScript/JavaScript.
• CI/CD Integration: Experience embedding automated and performance test suites into CI/CD workflows (e.g., GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI, or AWS CodePipeline).

Desirable Skills:

• Experience with infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tools like Terraform or AWS CloudFormation to spin up test environments and load generators.
• Familiarity with containerisation and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Exposure to other performance or APM tools (e.g., k6, Gatling, Datadog, New Relic, or Dynatrace).
• Experience testing microservices and event-driven architectures (e.g., SQS, SNS, Kafka).

Clearance Requirements:

• ​BPSS pre-screening required to start
• SC required for the role

What we do for you:
At Leidos we are PASSIONATE about customer success, UNITED as a team and INSPIRED to make a difference. We offer meaningful and engaging careers, a collaborative culture, and support for your career goals, all while nurturing a healthy work-life balance.

We provide an employment package that attracts, develops and retains only the best in talent. Our reward scheme includes:

•    Contributory Pension Scheme
•    Private Medical Insurance
•    33 days Annual Leave (including public and privilege holidays)
•    Access to Flexible benefits (including life assurance, health schemes, gym memberships, annual buy and sell holidays and a cycle to work scheme)

•    Flexi-Time Working

Commitment to Diversity:

We welcome applications from every part of the community and are committed to a truly diverse and inclusive culture.  We foster a sense of belonging, welcoming all perspectives and contributions, and providing equal access to opportunities and resources for everyone.  If you have a disability or need any reasonable adjustments during the application and selection stages please let us know, and we will respond in a way that best fits your needs.

Who We Are:

The Logistics Commodities & Services Transformation (LCST) Programme for the UK Ministry of Defence is a critical effort to enhance and improve the UK’s defence supply chain. The programme provides essential services such as storage and distribution for the MOD's materiel, including a global freight service and the procurement and inventory management of 70,000 commodity NATO Stock Number (NSNs).

Working together as Team Leidos we are helping to transform the UK's defence supply chain by providing an integration of a complex mixture of services, at low risk, using a modern suite of systems that will deliver one version of the truth. For the first time, the MOD will see the whole picture, as it is happening.

What Makes Us Different:

Purpose: you can use your passion and abilities at Leidos to keep the people you care about safe. We are at the forefront of machine learning, AI, cyber security and solutions. Using your skills in the technology frontline by helping to build a safer world.  You can inspire change.

Collaboration: having flexibility to do your job is one of our core benefits, enabling you to become part of our extraordinary team.  We have been empowering our people to work flexibly for years.  Whether you work from home, the office or on customer sites, we will give you the digital tools and the flexibility to work smarter and align your needs and ours.          

People: Leidos empowers people from every background to be themselves and gives you the tools to learn new skills by enabling growth whilst developing. We believe that extraordinary people need opportunities to grow, to be inspired and to inspire others. At Leidos, we invest in technical academies, career rotations and a career development plans that enhance your future.

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting:

Pay Range:

The Leidos pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.