Steven Mason

About Me

Building quality
from the ground up

I started as a Junior Automation Analyst at Admiral Group and never stopped pushing further. Today I lead QA, IT Operations, and Security Compliance for a fintech startup — simultaneously managing two cross-continental teams whilst contributing hands-on to automation engineering and policy writing.

I was employee #6 at Detected. When I joined, there was no QA function, no compliance programme, and no security framework. I built all three from scratch — and then built an agentic AI pipeline to supercharge the whole operation.

Outside of work I sit on the BCS South Wales board as Industry Liaison Officer, speak at national industry events, mentor newcomers into tech, and build mobile apps in my spare time.

            
            Enterprise Due Diligence Passed

            Thompson Reuters · GBG · Deloitte

            
            Agentic AI Pioneer

            Custom pipeline built from scratch — Obsidian → Cypress

            
            Mentor & Leader

            Mentored 2 women from non-IT backgrounds into QA automation engineers

🏦

SOC2

Type 1 & 2 Achieved

🛡️

ISO

27001:2022 Certified

🤖

Agentic Pipeline Built

🎤

BCS

Industry Liaison Officer

Career History

Every role,
a step up

From junior automation analyst to building entire departments from scratch. 14+ years of continuous progression.

JUNE 2021 – PRESENT

Fintech Startup · Employee #6

Detected

IT Operations, Audit, QA & Automation Lead

QA Lead IT Ops Compliance Agentic AI

Joined as Principal QA Engineer; grew into combined QA, IT Ops, and Security Compliance lead
Built entire QA function from day one — strategy, SDLC, automation suite, accessibility testing
Achieved SOC2 Type 1 & 2, ISO 27001:2022, and GDPR in parallel using Drata
Designed and built a custom Agentic AI testing pipeline from scratch
Manages QA team (5 UK · 3 India) and Compliance team (2 UK · 2 USA)
Founded & chairs the Change Authority Board (CAB) — with CEO, COO, CTO, CFO
Passed enterprise due diligence: Thompson Reuters, GBG, and Deloitte
Monthly C-suite security summary presentations

JUNE 2024 – PRESENT · VOLUNTARY

BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT

Industry Liaison Officer — South Wales Board

Industry Academia Ethics

Appointed to South Wales board through networking and industry engagement
Bridges the South Wales IT industry with academia and professional bodies
Organises workshops, conferences, and advocates for ethical IT practices
Working towards CITP (Chartered IT Professional) accreditation

AUGUST 2017 – JUNE 2021

Adgistics

IT Delivery & QA Lead

Delivery Lead QA Automation Rapid Response

Hired to transition QA from manual to Agile automation (WDIO)
Identified wider systemic issues; built and led the Rapid Response department
Led teams across UK, India, USA on a follow-the-sun Kanban model
Addressed significant technical debt from prior product pivots
Weekly CTO/Head of Engineering reporting; fortnightly board presentations

FEBRUARY 2016 – JULY 2017

Sapiens

Software Test Analyst

Insurance End-to-End Testing

End-to-end testing of complex insurance platform systems
Worked across customer-specific implementations in a regulated environment
Collaborated with developers for early defect identification

NOVEMBER 2010 – FEBRUARY 2016

FTSE 100 Company

Admiral Group (Central IT)

QA Analyst → Junior Automation Analyst

FTSE 100 UAT JMeter

Part of pioneering Agile team — developed Bell's first Telematics product
Led UAT for the Bolt project — Guidewire replacement of the legacy i90 system
Joined Test Automation team as Junior Automation Analyst; scripted with JMeter
Part of Admiral's historic transition from Waterfall to Agile

Expertise

A full-stack of
professional skills

Shift Left Testing

Champion of embedding quality across the entire SDLC — not just at the end. Built the culture from requirements stage through to production.

SDLC Ownership Test Strategy Defect Prevention

Cypress with JavaScript

Built and maintained complete E2E and API test automation suite at Detected from scratch. Wrote and managed alongside running the team.

E2E Testing API Testing CI/CD Integration

WebDriverIO (WDIO)

Built automation pipeline at Adgistics from scratch to improve product test coverage and transition the team from manual testing.

WDIO Cross-browser Pipeline Design

Accessibility Testing

Embedded accessibility testing as a standard part of the release process — not a bolt-on afterthought.

WCAG Release Gates

Team Management

Manages QA team of 8 engineers across UK and India. Hired, mentored, and grew the team from zero headcount.

5 UK Engineers 3 India Engineers Mentoring

CAB & Release Process

Founded and chairs the Change Authority Board governing all production releases, with cross-functional executive participation.

Go/No-Go Risk Assessment Rollback Plans

SOC2 Type 1 & 2

Achieved Stage 1 compliance in 12 weeks from a standing start. Continues to pass Stage 2 annually. Implemented via Drata.

Drata12-week deliveryAnnual audit

ISO 27001:2022

Implemented alongside SOC2. Continually passing. Full ISMS design and implementation across the business.

ISMSRisk RegisterSupplier Audits

GDPR (UK & EU)

Authored policies in collaboration with ICO, law firms, and compliance departments. Manages subject access requests and data mapping.

ICOData MappingPolicy Authorship

27 Policies Authored

Wrote every major security and operational policy from scratch — InfoSec, BCP, DR, Incident Response, Vulnerability Management, and more.

InfoSecBCP/DRIncident Response

MDM & Security Ops

Implemented MDM across all devices. Manages account, device, and infrastructure security. Coordinates background checks and security training.

MDMProcurementTraining

C-Suite Reporting

Monthly security summary presentations to CEO, COO, CTO, and CFO. Covers audit status, budget, procurement, and security posture.

Executive CommsData-drivenDashboards

Cross-continental Team Leadership

Managed 12 people across UK, India, and USA simultaneously across two teams — QA and Compliance — with different time zones and delivery cadences.

UKIndiaUSA12 direct reports

Mentoring & Development

Mentored 2 women from completely non-IT backgrounds into QA Automation Engineers. Coaches staff making career pivots into technology.

Career PivotsDiversity in TechCoaching

Stakeholder Management

Regular C-suite reporting, board presentations, external auditor coordination, law firm collaboration — across technical and non-technical audiences.

Board LevelCross-functionalExternal Partners

Strategic Thinking

Took a startup from employee #6 to fully audited, enterprise-ready operation. Independently identified and executed on company pivot requirements.

From ZeroStartup to ScaleDirector Goals

Agile & Kanban

Embedded Agile principles across development teams. Managed globally distributed teams using Kanban with follow-the-sun handoffs.

KanbanSprint FacilitationBacklog Management

Rapid Response

Built and led dedicated Rapid Response department at Adgistics to address systemic technical debt from product pivots across UK/India/USA.

Technical DebtSeverity TriageCross-timezone

JIRA & Tooling

JIRA integrated into the development lifecycle for issue tracking, sprint management, and release planning. Manages metrics and continuous improvement.

JIRAMetricsCI/CD

Paid Public Speaking

Ministry of Test talks on Shift Left and automation. Technology Leadership Wales panel. Events alongside DVLA, Wikipedia, NHS Digital Leadership.

Ministry of TestTLWNHS Digital

Technical Writing

Authored 27 company policies. STAR-format evidence writing for Civil Service behaviours. Release documentation for non-technical audiences.

Policy AuthorshipSTAR FormatRelease Docs

BCS Engagement

Industry Liaison Officer on the BCS South Wales board. Coordinates between private/public sector and academia. Advocates for ethical IT standards.

BCSCITP (in progress)Ethics

Agentic AI

The pipeline I built
from nothing

A fully custom agentic AI workflow connecting company documentation, AI-driven test generation, live Cypress automation, and business-facing documentation — designed, built, and owned entirely by me.

Data Ingestion

Pulls all company documentation and JIRA release notes into a structured, versioned library. Normalises content across formats and sources for downstream processing.

Knowledge Vault

Feeds the structured library into an Obsidian vault, organised by release and domain. Creates a queryable, AI-ready knowledge base that grows with every release cycle.

AI Test Case Generation

AI analyses the structured release content and generates contextually accurate test cases — functional, edge case, and regression — aligned to each release's scope.

Cypress Integration

Generated test cases are automatically pushed into the live Cypress automation suite, enhancing automated coverage per release cycle without manual scripting overhead.

Manual Test Scripts

Produces accurate, up-to-date manual test scripts for scenarios where automation isn't applicable — kept in sync with every release automatically.

Business Documentation

Generates advanced, accessible release documentation for non-engineering departments — Product, Customer Success, Operations — eliminating the manual comms bottleneck.

Reduced Overhead

Dramatically cut manual test maintenance time across each release cycle

Always Aligned

Test coverage stays in sync with a fast-moving product without proportional effort

Better Communication

Consistent, high-quality release docs for every team in the business

Side Projects

Building apps
in my own time

Two React Native apps built with Expo, TypeScript, and modern mobile architecture. Real problems, real code, real agentic AI-assisted development.

🔋

Active Development

WheresMYBattery

Never buy the wrong batteries again. A cross-platform mobile app to track your household battery inventory by type, device usage, and stock levels — with smart low-stock alerts and an auto-generated shopping list.

Track AA, AAA, C, D, 9V, CR2032 and more — regular & rechargeable
Link batteries to specific devices in your home
Low-stock threshold alerts with configurable limits
Auto-generated shopping list for items running low
Dark navy UI with a polished design system
Ad integration with opt-out support

React Native Expo TypeScript Zustand Expo Router

Storage

Shopping List

Early development build · Apr 2026

🤱

In Progress

NurtureFlow

A supportive companion app for new mothers — helping track feeding sessions, monitor side, log duration history, and reduce the anxiety that comes with those first weeks of breastfeeding. Built with care for a real need.

One-tap left/right session tracking with live timer
Full feed history grouped by date
Pattern insights to identify feeding rhythms
Gentle pink UI designed for sleep-deprived users
Ad integration with clean bottom nav

React Native Expo TypeScript Expo Router

Home

Timer

History

Early development build · Apr 2026

Built with Agentic AI assistance. Both projects are developed using Claude Code as an AI pair programmer — showcasing practical, hands-on use of agentic AI in real software development.

Public Profile

Speaking &
Industry Presence

From paid conference keynotes to panel discussions alongside industry giants — representing quality, testing, and technology leadership on the national stage.

Ministry of Test

Shift Left: Embedding Quality Across the SDLC

Delivered talks on Shift Left testing strategies and automation tooling (TestProject, Cypress) to a national audience of QA professionals.

💷 Paid Engagement

Ministry of Test

Test Automation in Practice

Covered real-world automation implementation with TestProject and Cypress — practical lessons from building pipelines in a startup environment.

💷 Paid Engagement

Technology Leadership Wales

Remote Working & Team Engagement

Panel discussion on leading distributed, remote teams during the pandemic. Shared insights on maintaining culture, performance, and wellbeing across geographies.

🎙️ Panel Discussion

Industry Events

Alongside DVLA · Wikipedia · NHS Digital

Speaker and participant at industry leadership events featuring public and private sector organisations. Cross-sector conversations on technology, quality, and transformation.

🏛️ Industry Event

BCS South Wales Board

Industry Liaison Officer

Appointed to the BCS South Wales board. Organises workshops and conferences bridging academia and the private/public sector. Advocates for ethical IT practice.

🎓 Board Member

BCS (In Progress)

Pursuing CITP Accreditation

Working towards Chartered IT Professional (CITP) status — the benchmark for senior IT professionals demonstrating breadth of experience, ethics, and continuous development.

📋 Accreditation

Building qualityfrom the ground up

Every role,a step up

Managing teamsacross three continents

A full-stack ofprofessional skills