Test Engineer

Overview

Department: Quality & Operations

Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time

Location: Remote

Reporting To: Anuspandana Musunuri

Description

Quality Assurance holds a vital place in River Island's Engineering Strategy and is an integral part of the development team. It is an exciting time for RI Tech as we continue our transition to a microservices architecture and embrace a DevOps culture, while also supporting and evolving a number of existing legacy systems. This mixed technology landscape provides a unique opportunity to influence, improve, and modernise our development and testing practices, with a focus on shortening feedback loops and maximising value. We are seeking a Retail System Test Engineer to join our Quality Assurance team, responsible for testing retail applications and backend systems. The role involves designing and executing test cases, ensuring end-to-end quality across both legacy and modern retail systems, and collaborating with business, development, and operations teams to deliver reliable and scalable solutions.

Key Accountabilities

• Ownership of quality early in the lifecycle - Champion and embed a shift-left approach to ensure testing is integral to in-sprint delivery.
• Culture of continuous testing - Advocate and uphold a continuous testing mindset across the team to drive faster feedback and improved product quality.
• Effective test strategy - Ensure consistent application of the test pyramid approach, maintaining balanced and effective coverage across all levels of testing.
• Quality in solution design - Guide and influence the team to incorporate testing considerations into solution design and development decisions.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and execute manual test cases for retail applications.
• Validate system integrations across retail platforms (Store systems, Backend ERP, middleware, APIs, eCommerce).
• Review and ensure requirements/user stories/acceptance criteria stated are correct, unambiguous, and verifiable.
• Work as an embedded tester in the context of a scrum team, evaluating the complexity of user stories, contributing to estimates during sprint planning, developing and performing tests.
• Conduct appropriate levels and types of testing of user stories.
• Collaborate with developers on architecture and design, evaluate and improve processes to enhance software quality.
• Identify and inform the team of any impediments or risks to product quality or project delivery.
• Ensure defects are documented in sufficient detail to be reproducible.
• Assist and supports business users during user acceptance testing.
• Ensure all work is completed on time and under established processes, practices, procedures and quality standards.

Qualifications, Experience and Competencies

Technical Competencies:

• Strong experience in testing retail systems, including POS, ERP, CRM backend systems.
• Solid understanding of transaction flows, inventory management, Stock and payment integrations.
• In-depth knowledge of SQL for database validation and backend testing.
• Extensive experience with quality assurance tools and practices.
• Understanding of agile methodologies such as test-driven development, continuous integration, agile testing.
• Experience of planning, executing and validating tests across the full test spectrum (functional, non-functional, regression, integration, E2E, UAT, OAT, etc.).
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent attention to detail and communication skills.

Preferred:

• Experience with Oracle ERP systems or similar
• Experience with API testing (Postman, SoapUI, REST-assured).
• Project/Issue tracking tools such as Jira
• Test Management tools such as Zephyr, X-ray or similar
• ISTQB/ISEB certification or equivalent.

Behavioural Competencies

• Analytical Thinking: Ability to break down complex retail processes into clear test scenarios and identify potential risks.
• Attention to Detail: Ensures accuracy in test cases, data validation, and defect reporting.
• Collaboration: Works effectively with cross-functional teams (developers, business analysts, product owners, support teams).
• Communication Skills: Clearly articulates defects, risks, and test results to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Adaptability: Flexible in working across multiple retail systems, projects, and technologies.
• Problem Solving: Proactively investigates issues, identifies root causes, and supports quick resolution.
• Ownership & Accountability: Takes responsibility for the quality of deliverables, driving continuous improvement.

About Us

We're a much-loved brand with an exciting future. Our Islanders are a diverse bunch of bright, talented people who love working together - and are proud of the work they do. Progression here can take you in all kinds of directions. This is what a career at River Island is like. And this is where yours starts.

This role is based at our Head Office in West London. There is a link provided here to check us out on a map.

What we can offer you:

• Generous 50% staff discount so you can treat yourself to the latest products, and a bargain staff shop on site.
• Discounts, benefits, financial advice, wellbeing solutions and more through Reward Gateway to reduce Islanders everyday expenses.
• A free onsite gym, subsidised restaurant & cafe, and various social events.
• Support for diverse family setups including enhanced maternity, paternity, adoption & fertility treatment; cooperation with the Retail Trust for additional support.
• Flexible working, payday and summer early finish Fridays.
• Give as you earn scheme with a 'Giver Island' day and matched funding.
• Upskilling through on-the-job training and qualifications, with a succession plan for progression.
• A generous bonus scheme & private pension plan.
• 25 days paid holiday, with the option to purchase additional holiday twice a year.

Keeping You Safe

At River Island we are committed to the safeguarding of all employees. We promote equality of opportunity and welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds. Flexibility in working arrangements will be considered unless operational requirements prevent it. For more about our interview process, please review our hiring process.