Job Title: QA Engineer

Reporting to: Head of Product

Location: Remote

Salary: Up to £65,000 dependant on experience

About IMP

At IMP we help Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs) take control of their finances. Our MAT-first software is built by people who know the sector inside out. Former trust professionals, finance experts and product specialists are all part of our team. More than half of all MATs in the UK already use IMP to plan with confidence, simplify complex processes and make smarter decisions.

We’re proud to be independent, founder-led and growing fast. Alongside our award-winning products, we’ve built a culture we’re equally proud of. We are ranked as one of the UK’s Top 25 Great Places to Work for mid-sized companies. Respect, collaboration and personal growth sit at the heart of how we work. You’ll find flexibility, support and opportunities to develop here, alongside regular team socials and funded CPD.

About the Role

We're looking for a QA Engineer to join us at an exciting inflection point. Our product has grown significantly with a foundation of manual testing, and we're now ready to invest seriously in test automation. This isn't a role where you'll inherit a mature automation framework—you'll help build it from the ground up.

You'll be embedded in a product squad, working alongside developers and product managers to ensure quality is built into our software from the start, not bolted on at the end. While manual testing remains important during this transition, your focus will progressively shift toward designing and implementing automated test suites that give us confidence to ship faster.

This role suits someone who enjoys both the craft of testing and the satisfaction of building systems that scale. You should be comfortable with ambiguity—we know where we want to go, but the path will be shaped by whoever joins us.

What You'll Do

Quality Strategy & Prevention

Participate in refinement sessions, identifying risks and edge cases before development begins

Collaborate with developers and product managers to define clear, testable acceptance criteria

Champion shift-left testing practices—finding defects when they're cheapest to fix

Help establish quality gates and standards that the whole team owns

Test Automation Development

Design and build our test automation framework, selecting appropriate tools and patterns

Write automated tests at multiple levels: unit test support, API testing, and end-to-end UI tests

Integrate automated tests into our CI/CD pipeline so quality feedback is fast and reliable

Create maintainable, readable test code that the whole team can contribute to

Establish patterns for test data management and environment configuration

Manual Testing & Exploration

Execute manual testing for new features and complex scenarios where automation isn't yet practical

Perform exploratory testing to find issues that scripted tests miss

Regression test critical paths while building automation coverage

Document defects clearly with reproduction steps and impact assessment

Continuous Improvement

Track and report on quality metrics—test coverage, defect trends, automation ROI

Identify opportunities to improve testing efficiency and effectiveness

Share knowledge with the team through documentation, pairing, and informal training

Stay current with testing tools, techniques, and industry best practices

What We're Looking For

Essential

Solid experience in software testing within an Agile environment

Hands-on experience with at least one test automation framework (e.g., Playwright, Cypress, Selenium, or similar)

Comfortable writing code—we don't expect you to be a developer, but you should be able to write and debug test scripts confidently

Experience with API testing tools (Postman, REST Assured, or similar)

Understanding of CI/CD concepts and how automated testing fits into deployment pipelines

Strong analytical skills—you can break down complex features into testable scenarios

Clear communication—you can explain technical issues to non-technical stakeholders

Self-directed learning—you'll need to research tools, solve problems, and grow your skills

Valuable (but we can develop)

Experience building automation frameworks from scratch, not just adding to existing ones

Familiarity with JavaScript/TypeScript (our likely automation stack)

Experience with database testing and SQL

Understanding of performance or security testing fundamentals

Experience in a product-based SaaS environment

ISTQB or equivalent certification

What This Role Isn't

We want to be upfront about what you're signing up for:

This isn't a pure manual testing role—if you're not interested in automation, this won't be the right fit

This isn't a role with an established framework waiting for you—you'll be building, not just maintaining

This isn't a siloed QA function—you'll be deeply integrated with developers and product

This isn't a role for someone who needs detailed specifications for every task—we work iteratively and value initiative

Our Tech Stack

You don't need experience with all of these, but familiarity with similar technologies helps:

Web application built with modern JavaScript frameworks

RESTful APIs

SQL databases

Git for version control

Azure DevOps

Benefits: 

27 days of holiday per year plus bank holidays (with a buy option up to an additional 5 days)

Enhance Maternity and Paternity leave

AXA Health insurance including dental, optical and mental health

Broadband allowance

Home office stipend

Life assurance (4 x basic salary)

Encouraged and funded CPD