Canada Life Assurance Europe plc (‘CLE’) is a dynamic insurance company with over 700 people across our offices in Germany and Ireland. We have been operating in Germany since 2000 and have established a fast-growing presence in one of the world’s largest and most established markets. We specialise in providing innovative unit-linked pension, savings, and protection solutions and have become a trusted partner for life insurance products distributed through independent brokers. It is our priority to support our customers at every stage of life with the best products and service, tailored to their needs - and we’re doing it all in a culture that promotes equality and inclusion for all of our current and future employees.

Role Overview

Canada Life Europe (CLE) is seeking a talented Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) who is passionate about software quality, has an Agile Tester mindset, and a track record for building effective automation frameworks.
Our SDETs have in depth knowledge of testing best practices and a strong programming background, enabling them to design and execute optimal test strategies that leverage our automation capabilities to maximum effect, helping the team to deliver high quality features quickly and safely to production.
We are looking for candidates with a strong Java programmatic background that have experience building automation frameworks from scratch with Cucumber/Serenity paired with Rest Assured and Selenium.

What you will help us to achieve

Test Strategy & Design

Contribute to defining the test strategy for new functionality focusing on achieving the optimal test approach for all functional and non-functional scope.
Ensure comprehensive and transparent test coverage for new and existing product features.
Responsible for application integration testing with required systems, databases, and services.

Test Automation & Execution

Implement and maintain test automation frameworks (build, maintain, document).
Implement best of breed, scalable solutions according to defined patterns and practices.
Develop, automate, and maintain effective test cases leveraging automation to optimise test cycle times and lead time for new functionality

Collaboration & Practices

Work closely with Software Engineers to understand the codebase, unit test coverage, and ensure testability.
Work as part of a Scrum team using Agile practices and values.
Support and promote testing best practices within the team; research test tools and work on continuous improvement within the CLE Quality Practice.

Key Strengths:

Strong programming background with Java (3 + preferable) with experience building BDD automation frameworks for both API and UI tier validation.
Proven ability to create robust and stable automated integration/functional/regression tests with transparent reporting on the automated coverage.
Demonstrate experience working in a test-driven environment with continuous integration pipelines managing the orchestration of feature and regression test packaging & execution.
Demonstrate hands on experience of testing code quality & metric production & the implementation of quality gates.
Agile tester mindset and approach, with experience contributing to test approaches that maximise the return on investment from automation and enable Continuous Delivery.
Strong communication skills and the ability to influence the Delivery Team on Software Quality best practices and ensuring testable high-quality software.
Ability to identify inefficiencies in testing strategies and actively contribute to improvement initiatives.
Strong database testing experience from a functional testing perspective.

What you will need to be successful in the role

Essential Skills:

Has written automated frameworks using one of the following Frameworks/Libraries: Serenity, Selenium, Cucumber, Rest Assured.
Experience developing or significantly enhancing test automation frameworks (from scratch or through substantial maintenance and extension)
Experience contributing to the test strategy for new features and breaking it down into the corresponding test types and building and executing an effective automation strategy for these.
Strong practical experience using Maven in an automated build (e.g. CI) to build and run automated tests.
Good Java development skills and experience of writing unit, integration and BDD Tests.
Experience of writing BDD Test suites with Gherkin, Cucumber and JUnit.
Experience of best of breed practices in relation to test delivery.
Has worked in highly automated CI/CD environments.
Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Desired Skills:

Previous experience working in Financial Services.
Previous experience working with Quotation systems in the Life Protection and Investment space and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Systems.
Written and/or oral German language.
Has experience of using Jenkins, for build and release management.
Good knowledge of best of breed practices in relation to build management and release management.

Personal Strengths:

The candidate needs to be a self- starter and implement best of breed testing solutions within the boundaries of the integration patterns, architectural principles and guidelines provided.
They must be a team player and provide guidance and assistance to other team members, particularly in automation and testing practices.
Passionate about Quality with a continuous drive for improvements.

Necessary Qualifications / Skills:

Minimum 3 years’ experience in a similar role.
3rd level qualification (honours degree), preferably in a related discipline.

The company reserves the right to draw up a shortlist as part of the selection process. Where Agency assistance is required the Canada Life Recruitment Team will engage directly with suppliers. Unsolicited CVs / profiles supplied to Canada Life by Recruitment Agencies will not be accepted for this role.

Even if you don’t see yourself reflected in every job requirement listed on the posting above, we encourage you to reach out and apply if you feel you are a good fit for the role. We are committed to creating a more equitable, inclusive and diverse company, and we strongly encourage applicants of all genders, ages, ethnicities, cultures, abilities, sexual orientation and life experiences to apply.

Canada Life Group Services is proud to be an Equal Opportunities employer. We have created an environment of inclusion and growth to help people achieve their potential, to ensure they can bring their whole selves to work and to feel valued. We celebrate diversity of thought and perspective and want all of our employees to feel valued, respected and supported. We have built a culture that promotes equality and inclusion for all of our current and future employees and strive to ensure that our behaviours, processes and practices are aligned to this culture.

If you require any accommodations during the recruitment process please contact lifecareers@irishlife.ie and we will be delighted to ensure you are fully supported to be your best.

CLGS supports Equal Opportunity and is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.

Software Development Engineer in Test

Job Description