Test engineer

Test engineers build the automated tests, tools, and frameworks that let teams test the organization's digital health services quickly and often. They write code to test functions, integrations, performance, security, and resilience, and build testing into delivery pipelines, so that changes to clinical and patient-facing systems can be released safely.

Family: Quality assurance testing
UK GDaD PCF role: Test engineer (Quality assurance testing (QAT))
ESCO occupations: software tester (ISCO-08 2519)
On GitHub: Role document · Role data

Levels

Band	Role level	UK GDaD PCF level	Civil Service grades	Job evaluation points
4	Associate test engineer	Associate test engineer	EO	275
6	Test engineer	Test engineer	HEO/SEO	411
7	Senior test engineer	Senior test engineer	SEO/G7	477
8a	Lead test engineer	Lead test engineer	SEO/G7/G6	553

In a digital health care organization

Clinical systems are safety critical, so automated regression tests protect the safety controls recorded in hazard logs and are kept as evidence for safety cases.
Integrations with other health and care systems need automated tests against standards such as HL7 FHIR and HL7 version 2, often using simulated partner systems.
Clinical services run around the clock and peak at predictable times, so performance and resilience testing models real clinical demand.
Test environments must not hold real patient data, so engineers generate realistic synthetic data, including rare and edge clinical cases.
Software regulated as a medical device needs traceable, repeatable testing as part of its life cycle under standards such as IEC 62304.

UK GDaD PCF role description

A test engineer designs, builds, automates and executes comprehensive, robust and maintainable test suites. They apply test engineering standards, perform exploratory testing and use diverse techniques to identify risks and improve testing efficiency and quality.
In this role you will:
maintain automated tests in continuous integration, continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines
use, develop and standardise reusable frameworks and tools following engineering practices and standards
analyse and test artefacts such as products, services and business processes
promote quality considerations throughout the development life cycle
support the resolution of technical issues

Contains public sector information from the UK Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework (https://understand-digital-data-roles-skills.service.gov.uk/), licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. © Crown copyright.

ESCO occupations and skills

ESCO lists the skills and knowledge that employers usually need (essential) or may need (optional) for each occupation. Use them as a checklist for development conversations.

software tester

http://data.europa.eu/esco/occupation/106f79e4-6264-45f1-9e7a-297435cd684b · ESCO code 2519.7 · ISCO-08 2519 Software and applications developers and analysts not elsewhere classified

Software testers perform software tests. They may also plan and design them. They may also debug and repair software although this mainly corresponds to designers and developers. They ensure that applications function properly before delivering them to internal and external clients.

Essential skills and knowledge (10)

Skills and competences

Knowledge

Optional skills and knowledge (70)

Skills and competences

Knowledge

Contains ESCO v1.2.1 data (https://esco.ec.europa.eu/). © European Union. Reuse authorised under Commission Decision 2011/833/EU.