The QA Engineer is embedded within an individual Scrum pod and is responsible for the quality assurance and testing activities associated with the pod's assigned business subsystem, application module, or workstream. The role works as an integral member of the cross-functional delivery team, ensuring that software functionality is thoroughly validated and meets defined business requirements, acceptance criteria, technical standards, and quality expectations before release.

The QA Engineer is responsible for test analysis, test design, test preparation, execution, defect identification, and validation throughout the software development lifecycle. This includes analysing user stories, functional specifications, business rules, process flows, and acceptance criteria to develop comprehensive test scenarios and test cases that provide adequate coverage of both normal and exceptional business conditions.

A key responsibility is test automation in accordance with the automation frameworks, tools, coding standards, and coverage objectives established by the QA Lead. The QA Engineer develops and maintains automated functional, API, and regression tests where appropriate and integrates these tests into the pod's development and CI/CD workflow. Automated tests are maintained as part of the application lifecycle to provide rapid and repeatable validation of existing functionality during subsequent releases.

The QA Engineer manages the defect lifecycle for the assigned subsystem, including defect identification, documentation, severity and priority assessment, evidence capture, developer coordination, retesting, regression validation, and closure. The role works collaboratively with developers to reproduce and diagnose issues and ensures that defects are resolved without introducing unintended impacts elsewhere in the application. Ultimately, the QA Engineer serves as the pod-level quality owner, ensuring that every feature and change delivered by the Scrum pod is appropriately tested, defects are identified and addressed early, automated regression coverage is continuously improved, and the subsystem meets the programme's defined quality standards before being promoted to subsequent environments or released to production.