Reports to: Head of Engineering
Department: Quality Assurance
Company Background
Unicard is dedicated to making transport more accessible, by designing, building, and delivering market-leading innovation for transport providers. As the leading provider of software solutions for public and private sector transport management and smart ticketing, for nearly 20 years Unicard has been trusted by millions of passengers to get them where they need to be. Today, our solutions can be found throughout the UK, processing approximately 4 billion transactions a year. We estimate that 1 in 4 public transport journeys in the UK are powered by a Unicard system at some point. As part of our team, you will be working in a fast-paced, collaborative environment, while helping to ensure the delivery of cutting edge, innovative technologies to the highest quality.
Since we started in 2003, a wide range of local authorities, transport operators and hardware manufacturers have depended on our capabilities in strategy, design, development, testing and delivery. We support a variety of customers, from simple single-user and concessionary travel programmes to complex multi-modal and multi-operator configurations. Examples include:
• Our technology powers Transport for West Midlands’ trailblazing ‘Swift’ integrated ticketing system, one of the most well-respected schemes in the UK, and the largest after ‘Oyster’ in London
• We are trusted by 60+ local authorities to deliver their vital elderly, disabled and social concessionary travel programmes for disadvantaged passengers – more than 40% of the market. This recently included enabling free travel for 300,000 young people in Scotland
• We provide the ticketing back office for all UK smartcard rail travel
• We are the smart ticketing provider to two Future Transport Zones, which are the Department for Transport’s dedicated innovation zones
• Over 30% of all smartcard terminals in the UK run on Unicard software
• We have approximately 4.5 million cardholders currently under management
• We have received two R&D grants from Innovate UK to develop “game changing and disruptive technologies”
• We are a product-led business using a range of development technologies (primarily Java or full-stack JavaScript) to deliver a variety of frontend products for web, mobile and native apps and a range of enterprise backend data collection and management systems.
Employing approximately 100+ people across the UK and Bulgaria, our in-house research, strategy and development capabilities give us an affordable, well-managed ability to develop market leading technologies and affordably maintain existing products. As a small-to-medium-sized enterprise, we pride ourselves on our reputation for outstanding products, technical support, delivery capability and high levels of customer service.
Role Purpose
The purpose of the QA Manager role is to define the strategy for testing across all products, ensuring consistent quality and performance. This full-time position involves managing and mentoring the QA staff, guiding them to achieve their full potential through effective leadership and support. The QA Manager is responsible for coordinating testing activities, identifying risks, and ensuring that quality issues and defects are appropriately documented, tracked, and resolved. By fostering a collaborative environment and maintaining a strong focus on both process and customer satisfaction, the QA Manager plays a crucial role in delivering high-quality software solutions.
Why Unicard
Unicard presents a unique opportunity to work for a financially strong company that is beginning to move into a much larger market. There is an enormous opportunity for growth as we build new products in new markets, and a lot of enthusiasm from the Chairman and CEO to adopt new tools and development practices. This is a varied and fast paced role which includes many different technologies and testing strategies and a chance to increase your knowledge both on the job and through training which will be provided as needed.
Responsibilities
• Defining the tool set and process for an effective QA activity
• Define clear KPI’s for tracking progress and improvement in our products
• Estimating, planning, and coordinating testing activities
• Ensure that quality issues and defects are appropriately identified, documented, tracked, and resolved
• The ability to quickly assess risk, lead a team to a decision, and ensure plans are executed
• Participate in the design process to understand, analyse, and influence the application / service / system to be tested
• Identify the risks and appropriate test coverage to validate new features
• Provide test plans for both development and regression phases
• Create more efficient ways to test features and identify areas of testing that can be automated
• Execute test cases, manually or in an automated fashion, capture and analyse the results, document issues, and prepare test reports
• Use Test Management tools to create, maintain, track, and execute test cases
• Analyse and identify the issues found during testing, work with the QA and the development teams to diagnose them
• Understand the business aspects, as well as the ways the customers are using the system; and check if the system is performing as it should have been
• Leading activity and test project capabilities include planning, designing, preparing, and executing the tests
Professional and Technical Experience
Essential:
• Proven experience in leading and mentoring QA teams, helping staff reach their full potential.
• Strong ability to define, unify, and implement comprehensive test strategies across multiple projects.
• Skilled in planning, coordinating, and executing testing activities, ensuring timely delivery and high quality.
• Ability to quickly assess risks and make informed decisions, guiding teams through complex testing scenarios.
• Experience defining KPIs and driving improvement
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to effectively interact with stakeholders, including developers, product managers, and customers.
• Strong analytical skills to diagnose issues, identify root causes, and work collaboratively with development teams to resolve problems.
• Experience in creating clear, concise, and comprehensive test plans, test cases, and test reports.
• Ability to thrive in a dynamic environment with frequently changing requirements.
• Experience in building and following a software development lifecycle together with engineers, adhering to agile methodologies.
Desirable:
• Familiarity with headless browser testing, Selenium, or similar tools, and experience with GitLab (GitLab Pipelines) for CI/CD.
• Knowledge of industry standards, regulatory requirements, and compliance in software quality assurance.
• Experience with transport ticketing systems or working with public sector customers.
• Understanding of business aspects and customer usage patterns to ensure the system meets end-user expectations.
Personal Skills
• Works collaboratively with others
• Values and adapts to different cultures
• Sets and prioritises challenging targets
• Rigorous, manages own time and resources
• Displays sound judgement, makes effective, timely decisions
• Seeks opportunities to learn and develop
• Dependable, takes personal responsibility
• Open, trustworthy and trusting
• Positive and brave
• Calm under pressure
• “Can do” attitude
• Willing to learn new technologies
What we offer
• Competitive remuneration package
• Company funded Healthcare plan
• Life Assurance
• Company pension
• Hybrid working (minimum 3 days office attendance)
• 2 days per annum paid volunteer days
• Modern working environment and friendly atmosphere
• Knowledge sharing (working with experienced professionals)
• Autonomy and trust in decision making
• Office in a central location