Junior QA Engineer (Automation Track)
First seen by Alion on Oct 14, 2026.
Remote, full-time role for candidates based in Moldova or Romania only.
Reports to: Lead QA Automation Engineer
Location: Remote (Moldova or Romania), working hours aligned with our development team.
Type: Full-time
Compensation: Competitive
About us
We built the leading platform for gas engineers and heating companies to manage jobs, scheduling, quoting, invoicing, heat pumps and compliance. We are a product-led SaaS business serving thousands of engineers across the UK, with a development team based largely in Eastern Europe.
When an engineer is on a job, the software has to work. Quality is a strategic priority here, not an afterthought.
The opportunity
This is a junior seat on a small QA team that is automating manual testing out of existence. We run Cypress, Maestro and Postman suites, enforced CI/CD quality gates in GitLab, and AI-assisted test generation and maintenance.
You start on real testing on a real product. You own manual regression and release verification for the web portal, then convert that work into automation, mentored by an experienced Lead QA Automation Engineer whose job is to grow your automation skills.
In your first months the majority of your week is hands-on manual testing and bug investigation. The role is designed so that share falls as you automate it.
What you'll do
From day one
- Own manual regression and release testing for the web portal, the checks that protect every release.
- Reproduce, verify and triage incoming bugs with support and developers.
- Investigate potential issues reported by customers and establish what is actually happening.
- Keep test-case management (Qase) accurate: cases, statuses and coverage marking.
- Support release verification alongside the QA Lead.
Growing from month one
- Write automated tests in our Cypress (JavaScript / TypeScript) web suite, starting with the highest-value manual cases.
- Learn how our CI/CD quality gates work in GitLab and help keep them green.
- Work with AI-assisted testing tools for test generation and maintenance.
- Take on mobile automation (Maestro) as you progress.
Must-haves
- A relevant starting point for a junior QA seat: a completed QA internship, or 1 to 2 years of QA experience, or finished or current study at a Technical University (IT, software or engineering). Commercial QA experience is not required for students and graduates, and a real project, bootcamp or testing exposure during a degree counts in your favour.
- Passionate about coding and technology. The future of this role is automation, so you must be able to read and write code.
- Eager to gain hands-on test automation experience, and motivated to remove repetitive manual work rather than settle into it.
- Familiar with basic programming principles and algorithms.
- Familiar with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and TypeScript.
- Familiar with Git.
- Strong attention to detail. You notice what is wrong and can describe exactly how to reproduce it.
- Learn fast, ask questions, take initiative. You are comfortable working remotely in a distributed team.
- Clear written English. Bug reports and test cases are how you communicate with developers.
Nice-to-haves
- Experience with test automation frameworks, specifically Cypress or Playwright.
- Experience with manual testing.
- Exposure to API testing (Postman) or CI/CD pipelines (GitLab).
- Experience with AI coding or testing tools.
- Understanding of software development principles.
The person we're looking for
- A junior engineer who is willing to earn their automation experience through real testing. Not a career manual tester, and not a developer who considers testing beneath them.
- Interested in how software breaks, and in proving a fix holds.
- Coachable. You will work closely with a senior SDET whose job is to make you better every week.
- Measures their own progress in manual checks removed and automated cases added.
How we'll measure success
- Web portal manual regression work is reliably covered, and releases are verified on time.
- Bugs you report are precise, reproducible and trusted by developers.
- A growing share of your week is spent on automation, evidenced by manual cases you have converted.
- Within your first year: contributing tested, maintainable automated cases to the web suite independently.