Golang Job: Test Manager

Who we are

Touch are developing a next generation investment platform. We want to use technology to improve the way consumers access financial advice and manage their investments. The majority of existing platforms are still reliant on software and processes that aren’t capable of supporting today’s technology, so we started from scratch, developing a modern platform that is as efficient as possible.

We're building a mobile first investment app that lets advisers manage their clients' investments entirely through their smartphone.

We originally founded the company (then Adalpha Ltd) in 2018, before being acquired in 2021 by AJ Bell, one of the UK's largest investment platforms and part of the FTSE 250 Index, to support the development of their digital services.

The role

Members of our test discipline are a key part of our software development process, from formulating acceptance criteria with stakeholders, working as a team to build and test features, and assessing the quality of changes before they enter production.

Our team and the products they build have continued to grow, and we are now looking for an experienced and hands-on Test Manager to ensure our quality assurance and testing practices are efficient, fit for purpose, and baked in to every stage of our software development lifecycle.

Joining a small, dynamic team you will have the opportunity to work on a large greenfield development, helping to orchestrate the development and testing of the entire system.

The day to day responsibilities

We're happy to take direction from the successful candidate on the approaches they feel will be most effective in delivering an effective test strategy for our platform and applications. We expect the successful candidate to be a hands-on member of the team who will contribute across projects as well as providing general oversight for our testing practices. The typical day to day tasks we would expect them to own will include:

• Building test strategies and detailed test plans alongside the scoping and development of software projects
• Ensuring requirements and acceptance criteria are clear and fit for purpose from a quality and test context
• Managing and partaking in the execution of tests and reporting results, capturing key metrics and learnings over time
• Leading by example in the process of raising and resolving test defects in a structured and repeatable manner
• Building systems which ensure regular and meaningful collaboration, reducing churn and minimising defects at UAT
• Maintaining an active, integrated relationship with project teams made up of engineers, testers, designers and feature owners
• Advocating for quality and testing excellence, driving efficiency in verifying high quality output, and resolving issues that impede testing effort
• Mentoring and guiding existing and new team members in quality assurance practices, championing testing and QA at every stage of project lifecycle Your skills and attributes
• Excellent, demonstrable knowledge of software testing practices and an understanding of various types of software testing
• Confident in developing acceptance criteria, test plans and test conditions
• Ability to assess risks and estimate, plan and prioritise tasks accordingly
• Proactively engage in cross-functional communication and information sharing
• Contribute to the building of cooperative relationships and an environment in which everyone’s opinion is valued
• Provide ongoing feedback, coaching and mentoring to individuals within the testing discipline
• Experience in performing and managing testing methodologies in software projects
• Experience in the finance/fintech industries is not required but may be beneficial Our tools and technologies The below are examples of technologies that we are currently using. While you may not have prior knowledge or experience in using them, an interest in learning how we use them and being inquisitive about them from a testing context would be beneficial.
• GitLab for managing merge requests, automated testing pipelines and deployments
• Go (Golang) for our backend services (supported by unit, service and system tests)
• Dart and Flutter for native mobile apps (supported by unit and integration tests)
• TypeScript and Vue for web applications (supported by unit and end to end tests)

Working at Touch by AJ Bell

• Salary: £50,000 - £60,000
• Location: Bristol/Remote
• Discretionary bonus scheme: Based on performance against personal targets and, where appropriate, team objectives and on the financial success of your division
• Death in service: Membership of our company group death in service scheme, which provides a sum assured of 3 times salary
• Low-cost private medical insurance: Option to join the scheme, the group provides access to a low-cost scheme on a voluntary, salary sacrifice basis
• Holiday entitlement: 26 working days plus bank holidays, increasing by 1 every year up to 30 days (plus holiday buy and sell scheme)
• Reduced charges: AJ Bell Youinvest SIPP, ISA and/or General Investment Account
• Study support scheme: may be provided in the way of financial support and/or time off for study and exams
• BAYE scheme: Ability to purchase AJ Bell shares through salary sacrifice
• Pension scheme: Eligible to receive an employer contribution of up to 6% of your basic salary if you make a personal contribution of at least 5% - up to the upper earnings limit
• Bike loan scheme: an interest free loan of up to £1,000 to pay for a new bike to cycle to work
• Employee assistance programme: a helpline run by an external provider available 24/7 and able to provide counselling services and legal advice when needed
• Enhanced maternity and paternity schemes: offer enhanced pay for employees with 2 years' service at 15 weeks before the baby's due date
• Charity giving through payroll: able to nominate a charity to receive donations each month, taken through payroll If you like the sound of the above, or just want to know more about the company and the role, we'd love to speak to you