Vetted on a call by a Wave consultant, not scraped. £65,000 to £75,000.
Manual QA with a coaching habit. 10 years across payments, banking, digital marketing and most recently generative AI products, and at each stop the job has been as much about changing how a team works as about writing test cases. Pushed a team into TDD and lifted automation coverage, and reads Datadog, Honeycomb and Kibana to work out what actually broke rather than waiting for someone to tell them.
Looking forRedundancy in September 2025 when a startup ran short of money, so stability now counts more than badge value. Small team, remote flexibility, and an employer that is bootstrapped or already making revenue.
How they came acrossDirect, and honest with us about being wary of going startup again after being burned once. Cared more about who they would sit next to than about the title on the offer.
Playwright, TypeScript, JavaScript, WebdriverIO, Selenium · Postman, REST APIs, DynamoDB · AWS, GitHub Actions, CircleCI, Datadog
Quality roles at a venture backed online car marketplace, two digital product consultancies and an AI copywriting startup. 5 employers, average stint 2 years.
Won't take a role that isn't remote-friendly and won't join a financially fragile company again. Our notes are from November 2025, so check where they've landed since.
Masters in American studies and international relations. ISTQB Foundation and Scrum Master PSM I.
16 years of testing, and the last stretch spent as the only QA in a startup while acting as de facto manager for 4 testers based in India. Automation in Playwright, Selenium, Postman and JMeter, plus load testing and a line of work most QA people haven't touched yet, validating LLM output. Has stood QA up from nothing more than once.
Looking forTold us the current organisation had gone quiet and there wasn't enough work to fill the role. Wants more scope, more than £65,000, and fully remote.
How they came acrossHigh ownership, reports straight to founders and VPs and seems to be trusted with the whole quality picture. Collaborative rather than gatekeeping, and clear that when they own the function they expect the title to say so.
Playwright, Selenium, Appium, JMeter, Postman · Java, JavaScript, SQL · Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Azure Load Testing
QA across 3 startups plus earlier spells at a global IT services firm and a couple of consultancies, covering 7 to 8 different domains. 8 employers, average stint 2 years 4 months.
Title matters to them. If they're owning the function they expect Lead in the name, and they said so plainly. Prescreen is from November 2025 so the situation may have moved.
Masters in computer science from a Russell Group university. ISTQB Foundation and AZ-900.
Payments and trading systems are the real specialism here. ISO 20022 message testing down to the pain.001 and camt.053 level, FIX 4.2 and 4.4 with VeriFIX on the trading side, and more recently blockchain and smart contract testing at a crypto business. System integration, UAT and OAT rather than unit-level work, with Postman, Jenkins, K6 and Robot Framework to support it.
Looking forCame to us after a cross-border payments project was cancelled and the tech team was made redundant. Wants a lean startup where QA gets to challenge the product early rather than receive it finished, remote-first with occasional London days.
How they came acrossCalm and senior in the way you'd expect after 20 years in financial services. Enjoys being in the room at design stage and has mentored testers for most of their career.
Postman, K6, Robot Framework, Jenkins, TestRail · SQL, UNIX, Grafana · ISO 20022, FIX 4.2/4.4, blockchain and smart contract testing
Trading and market data firms, a UK life insurer, a listed online gaming group, a crypto custody startup and an FX payments business. 8 employers, average stint 2 years 6 months.
Our notes are from November 2025 when they were between roles after the redundancy, and the file shows a role started since, so confirm the current situation before moving.
A Levels in history, economics and politics. ISTQB Advanced Test Manager, ISEB software testing and ITIL Foundation.
Tell me which came closest and I recalibrate, then come back with 10 to 15 more inside 24 hours.
Show me the wider bank