Quality & test automation

A test suite teams trust enough to deploy on, rather than one they routinely skip.

Discuss your project Learn this field

What is it?

A slow or flaky suite is worse than none, because it trains people to ignore red. We build layered automated testing that runs fast, fails for real reasons, and gives a clear enough signal that releasing on a green build is a reasonable decision.

For a technical reader

The economics are simple: a test's value is its probability of catching a real defect, divided by its runtime and maintenance cost. That is why the pyramid is shaped the way it is — unit tests are cheap and fast, end-to-end tests are expensive and slow, so you want many of the first and few of the second. Inverted pyramids produce suites that take an hour and fail for environmental reasons, which trains teams to re-run rather than investigate, which is the point at which the suite stops providing any signal at all.

Our services

Test strategyAn agreed approach for what is tested at which level, so coverage is deliberate rather than accidental.
Suite remediationTaking an existing slow or flaky suite and making it trustworthy.
Automation buildImplementing unit, integration, contract and end-to-end layers in your pipeline.
Performance testingBaseline load and latency measurement with regression gates.

What’s covered

Unit and contract tests
Fast tests at the boundary, plus consumer-driven contracts between services
Integration and API tests
Real database and real HTTP, against ephemeral environments
End-to-end journeys
A small set of critical user paths in Playwright or Cypress, kept deliberately small
Performance and load
Baseline throughput and latency, with regression thresholds in the pipeline
Test data management
Seeded, anonymised datasets so tests are repeatable and safe to run

Business problems we solve

The suite is red and nobody looksOnce red is normal, the suite has no value. Fixing or deleting flaky tests comes before adding anything.
Testing is a phase at the endDefects found late cost more. Automated tests in the pipeline move discovery to the point of change.
Releases need manual regressionA multi-day manual pass caps how often you can release. Automating the regression path is what unlocks cadence.
Coverage is high but bugs still shipCoverage measures lines executed, not behaviour verified. We test behaviour and the paths that actually matter.

Our delivery approach

  1. 01
    Fix flakiness firstAn unreliable suite cannot be built on. Existing flaky tests get repaired or removed before anything is added.
  2. 02
    Weight the pyramid properlyMany fast unit tests, fewer integration tests, a small set of end-to-end journeys. Inverting that is why suites take an hour.
  3. 03
    Test behaviour, not implementationTests coupled to internals break on every refactor and get deleted. Tests on behaviour survive.
  4. 04
    Put it in the pipelineAutomated on every change, with results visible to everyone and a clear owner when it breaks.

Solutions & project types

Examples of the work we take on in this area. These describe project shapes, not named client engagements.

Regression suite for a release gateAutomating the manual regression pack so releases do not depend on a multi-day test window.
Contract tests between servicesConsumer-driven contracts so a provider change cannot silently break a consumer.
End-to-end journeys for a portalA small set of critical user paths run on every deployment.
Performance baselineEstablishing throughput and latency baselines and failing the build on regression.

Technologies & platforms

Unit & integration

  • Jest
  • Vitest
  • pytest
  • JUnit
  • Testcontainers

End-to-end

  • Playwright
  • Cypress
  • Selenium

Contract

  • Pact
  • Spring Cloud Contract

Performance

  • k6
  • JMeter
  • Gatling
  • Locust

Pipeline

  • GitHub Actions
  • GitLab CI
  • Jenkins
  • Azure DevOps
Learn this field

Where to start with quality & test automation.

Secondary to the work itself, but genuinely useful if you are building the skill. Every link goes to official documentation or an official channel.

Beginner

  • Write a unit test and understand arrange-act-assert
  • Test doubles: stub, mock, fake, and when each fits
  • Run tests automatically on every commit
  • Read a coverage report without treating it as a target

Intermediate

  • Integration tests against real dependencies with Testcontainers
  • Page object patterns and resilient selectors
  • Consumer-driven contract testing
  • Deterministic test data and isolation
  • Diagnosing and eliminating flakiness

Advanced

  • Performance testing and realistic load modelling
  • Testing in production: canaries, synthetics, feature flags
  • Mutation testing to assess suite quality
  • Risk-based test strategy at portfolio level

Certifications

  • ISTQB Certified Tester Foundation Level
  • ISTQB Advanced Level Test Automation Engineer
  • Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) for pipeline work

Practice projects

  • Take a flaky test and make it deterministic, then write up why it flaked
  • Add contract tests between two services and break one deliberately
  • Automate the top five manual regression cases in Playwright
  • Add a k6 load test to the pipeline with a latency threshold
  • Run mutation testing and see how many mutants the suite actually catches
FAQs

Questions we get asked.

What coverage percentage should we target?

None in particular. A number as a target gets gamed with tests that execute code without asserting anything useful. Cover the paths where a defect would actually hurt, and track escaped defects instead.

Should we automate everything?

No. Exploratory testing finds things automation cannot, and some tests cost more to maintain than the bugs they catch. Automate the repetitive regression path and keep human attention for the rest.

How long to fix a flaky suite?

It depends on how much of the flakiness is shared root causes — usually test data, timing assumptions and shared state. Often a handful of fixes resolves most of it.

Can you work with our existing framework?

Usually yes. Rewriting a working suite in a new framework is rarely worth it. We would only recommend it if the existing one is the actual cause of the flakiness.

Engineering

Related services.

Cloud-native developmentServices built to run on cloud infrastructure from the first commit, not lifted onto it later.Platform engineeringThe internal foundations that let your product teams ship without re-solving infrastructure each time.API & systems integrationMaking systems that were never designed to talk to each other exchange data reliably.Application modernizationMoving legacy applications forward without a rewrite that never lands.
Start the conversation

Talk to our experts about quality & test automation.

Tell us where you are. A specialist will read it and reply within one business day.

Discuss your project