Test Manager at Storm ID, Edinburgh, £Contract Rate

Test Manager
Edinburgh (Hybrid)
Contract - 6 months (outside IR35)
Commitment: 4-5 days per week (flexible for the right candidate)
  
Please note candidates must be eligible to work on UK public sector programmes; a Basic Disclosure check (or higher, as required) will apply.
  
About the programme
Storm ID is delivering a large-scale digital transformation programme for a national public sector health organisation: a safety-critical, regulated programme replacing an established national service with a fully digital pathway. The solution is an orchestrator-based microservices architecture integrating with five external supplier systems over FHIR, with AES/PKI encryption, MFA, and a dual-running migration period alongside the legacy service. Target MVP is 2028.

Delivery is governed by clinical safety case requirements, regulatory audit traceability standards, and formal client-side governance processes. Quality evidence must be defensible and audit-ready at all times.

The role
You will own the test function for the programme end to end: test strategy, day-to-day test management, and quality governance. You are the single point of accountability for quality on the programme and the primary test-facing contact for client-side governance counterparts, including their Test Manager and Technical Architect Lead.

A QA strategy, defect management policy, and CI/CD quality gate design are already in place, with an ADR programme in progress. You will take ownership of these artefacts, evolve them, and complete the remaining decisions — including test pyramid ownership, cross-browser coverage, test data management, and NFT tooling. This is a role with full authority over the test approach, and full accountability for defending it in front of a regulated health sector client.

You will manage a mixed team of permanent and contract test engineers and coordinate testing activity across five external suppliers at the FHIR integration boundary.

Key responsibilities

• Test strategy and governance — Own, evolve, and defend the programme QA strategy, including risk-based assurance, shift-left practice, and in-sprint quality. Author and land the remaining test-related Architecture Decision Records.
• Client-facing accountability — Represent the test function in client governance forums; present strategy, quality reporting, and audit evidence to senior client stakeholders; agree exit criteria and sign-off positions with governance counterparts.
• Test delivery management — Plan, coordinate, and report test execution across sprints and releases, enforcing the programme Definition of Done and preventing test slippage across sprint boundaries.
• Traceability and audit readiness — Maintain requirements-to-test-to-defect traceability in Azure DevOps (Test Plans, work items, pipelines) to the standard required for clinical safety case evidence and regulatory audit.
• Defect management — Operate the programme defect management policy: all defects logged at point of discovery, triaged with clinical risk in view, and trend data preserved for safety-critical quality management.
• Multi-vendor coordination — Coordinate integration and contract testing with five external suppliers at the FHIR boundary, including test environment scheduling, dependency management, and joint defect resolution.
• Quality gates — Enforce shift-left quality gates in the CI/CD pipeline, including E2E execution at PR stage as a merge-blocking control, and own staging-to-production exit criteria and release sign-off.
• Team management — Provide direction to permanent and contract test engineers; support the development of junior team members; own test capacity and capability planning for the programme, including hiring input.
• Automation oversight — Direct the use of the Playwright-based automation framework (BDD layer) and BrowserStack cross-browser coverage in line with the programme test pyramid (~70% API/contract, ~20% integration, ~10% UI).

Essential experience

• 7+ years in testing, including 3+ years in test management with ownership of test strategy - not solely execution against a strategy authored by others.
• Testing in a safety-critical or heavily regulated domain (health, medical devices, financial services, aviation, or similar) with formal traceability and audit obligations.
• Direct, senior client-facing experience: presenting quality positions, defending test evidence, and negotiating sign-off with external governance stakeholders.
• Azure DevOps for test management: Test Plans, work item linking, and pipeline-integrated quality gates.
• API and contract testing in a multi-vendor integration context; ability to manage testing across organisational boundaries with external suppliers.
• Risk-based test approaches: prioritisation, coverage argumentation, and defensible test evidence.
• Line or matrix management of test engineers in agile delivery, including developing junior staff.

Desirable experience

• Public sector or health sector delivery; familiarity with clinical safety standards (DCB 0129/0160 or equivalent) and clinical safety case evidence.
• HL7 FHIR or other healthcare interoperability standards.
• Authoring Architecture Decision Records or equivalent formal decision documentation.
• Playwright, BDD frameworks (SpecFlow / Cucumber), and BrowserStack.
• Legacy system migration or dual-running programmes.
• ISTQB Advanced Test Manager or equivalent certification.