QA Team Lead

About the role

We're Capital on Tap 👋 💳 Capital on Tap started because small businesses were underserved. Big banks were slow, their products weren't fit for purpose, and small business owners often couldn't access what they needed. We set out to fix that. Today we're a financial platform - not just a credit card company. We offer a best-in-class business credit card, SME-focused spend management platform, a savings product that hit £1 billion in funds within its first year, and a growing suite of tools and financial products that make running a small business easier. 1,000+ employees, £20bn in annual card spend, 200,000+ customers, 17,000+ Trustpilot reviews averaging 4.7 stars, and we're profitable. We've done a pretty good job so far, but we're just getting started! 📍 Porto Matosinhos | 🏢 2 Days in the Office Quality Engineering at Capital on Tap 🚀 Quality Engineering is embedded across our mission teams, partnering with Engineering, Product, and UX to champion quality at every stage of the software lifecycle. We build quality in from the start - not bolt it on at the end. As QA Team Lead, you will shape how we think about quality, grow the capability of the people around you, and help us ship faster with confidence. You will be expected to drive AI tool adoption across the team and embed intelligent tooling into everyday engineering practice. What You'll Be Doing 🗃️ People, Coaching & Knowledge Sharing Coach the team on best practices and domain knowledge to ensure they are self-sufficient. Transform junior members into independent experts capable of leading their own initiatives. Establish a "Self-Serve First" culture and document answers so the team does not rely on the Lead's memory. Deliver performance conversations with compassion - separate the work from the person and focus on the mechanism of failure rather than blame. Influence & Stakeholder Alignment Partner with Dev and UX to govern the feature lifecycle and ensure the team has the context to act independently. Represent QA in company-wide working groups and influence the wider engineering roadmap and priorities. Push back constructively on unrealistic demands before they become debt the team must manage alone. Align quality standards with business priorities so the team can play the game effectively from the sidelines. Ownership & Impact Ensure the team can deliver sprint goals and resolve incidents without the Lead's direct involvement. Author and maintain mission-level Quality OKRs; use data to drive continuous improvement. Treat unreleased or untested work as a liability; maintain an urgency mindset to ship frequently. Decisively manage underperformance and pursue a better fit when a role does not match an employee's strengths. AI Enablement & Innovation 🤖 Champion the use of Claude and GitHub Copilot across the QA team for test generation, data creation, and root-cause analysis. Evaluate and adopt emerging AI tools that reduce toil and improve signal quality in testing pipelines. Establish clear guidelines for responsible AI use in testing: prompt engineering standards and review gates. Partner with Platform Engineering to integrate AI-assisted tooling into CI/CD pipelines. Our Values & Culture 🌞 Just Pilot: We never settle for "good enough". We pilot new ideas fast, ask questions to figure it out, and scale quickly. Why Not Today? Fast is as slow as we go - speed and simplicity gives us a competitive advantage. Be a Buddy: We tap in from day one to help the team, we do the right thing even if it's hard. Owners and Dates: We don't chase people. If you own a task and agree to a date, the expectation is that it gets done. Feedback: We want our employees to flourish, so we regularly provide direct and constructive feedback. We're Looking For 🔎 Proven experience in a QA leadership role, ideally within a fast-paced tech or fintech environment. Strong knowledge of test automation strategies, tools (e.g. xUnit, RestSharp, Cypress), and agile methodologies. Experience testing RESTful APIs and microservice architectures. Hands-on experience with AI coding assistants (Claude, GitHub Copilot) and a track record of driving AI adoption. Experience designing and enforcing responsible AI usage guidelines within a QA or engineering context. Experience integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines and deployment workflows. Data-driven approach to decision-making; comfort with agile metrics and Quality OKRs. Even if you don't have all of the necessary skills, we still encourage you to apply. Interview Process 🤝 First stage: 30-minute intro, CV review, and values with Talent Partner Second stage: 45-minute "Tech Chat" with Team Manager Final stage: 60-minute Code Pairing + 30-minute Stakeholder Interview with Engineering & Product Diversity & Inclusion 🌈 We welcome, consider and encourage applications from anyone who shares our commitment to inclusivity. Join us in creating a space where authenticity thrives,