Rhys Thomas | Quality Engineering, SDET and Developer Experience

Hi, I'm Rhys Thomas.
I make testing faster and easier for developers.

I'm a Senior Quality Engineer. I work on test strategy, mobile automation and CI pipelines, and I build the tools that let developers test their own work.

75 → 13 min Pull request build time

94% Off our GitHub Actions bill

1 → 3 Squads I support as the only QA

~10× Quicker form processing with OCR

About me

I'm a Senior Quality Engineer based in the UK. At ClearScore I'm the only QA across several squads, so most of my job is setting how we test, building tools and fixing CI so that developers can test their own work.

Lately I've got our native pull request builds down from 75 minutes to 13 and cut our GitHub Actions bill by 94%. I've also built a tool for creating test users on demand, moved our mobile regression tests over to Maestro and written Claude skills and an agent to help migrate the app to Jetpack Compose.

Before ClearScore I worked in Germany, New Zealand and Australia. Away from work I ski, mountain bike and generally throw myself down hills. I've played lead guitar in the London Video Game Orchestra and I run a small 3D-printing business, Fusion Creations.

View my CV (PDF)

Featured work

Case study

Quality engineering at ClearScore / DriveScore

Challenge

DriveScore went from one squad to three. I was still the only QA, so testing and CI had to keep up without adding red tape or cost.

What I did

Set how we test across all three squads
Rebuilt the native CI pipelines
Built a self-service tool for creating test users
Moved mobile regression tests from CodeceptJS to Maestro
Gave developers the tooling and guidance to test their own changes
Wrote Claude skills that make it easier for developers to write API and Maestro tests
Built an AI agent to help move old XML components to Jetpack Compose

Impact

75 → 13 min pull request builds
94% less spent on GitHub Actions
Mobile regression tests run automatically in CI
50% of legacy XML components moved to Jetpack Compose
Developers doing more of their own testing

GitHub Actions spend chart showing the daily average dropping from about $70 in February to under $4 in March after the CI rework — Daily GitHub Actions spend, before and after the CI rework.

Other projects

Optical Character Recognition

Problem: At the New Zealand Electoral Commission I spent my days typing handwritten forms into a database. It was slow, dull and easy to get wrong.
Approach: I built a tool that used the Google Vision API to read the forms and put the data straight into the database.
Result: Forms got processed about ten times faster.

View the OCR source code Read the OCR blog post

Demo of the OCR tool reading a handwritten form and extracting its fields

Grab latest App Center builds

Problem: Finding and downloading the latest mobile builds from Microsoft App Center by hand was a chore.
Approach: I published an NPM package that finds your app by name and downloads the newest build, but only if you don't already have it.
Result: Getting the latest build takes one function call.

View the package source code View on NPM

Two-line code example calling getLatestBuilds with an App Center app name

Backr Maps

Problem: At Roam, the Backr team wanted a way to see the effect of their work day to day.
Approach: I pulled sign-up data from our analytics platform and plotted it on a map of Australia using the Google Maps API.
Result: Each day the team could see where new users were signing up from.

View the Backr Maps source code

Animated map of Australia with markers appearing where new users signed up

How I work

Quality assistance

I help developers test their own work instead of being a gate at the end.

Automate what matters

I automate the risky stuff, not everything. More tests isn't the goal.

Fast feedback

Shorter waits for test results and less repetitive work for everyone.

Right-sized process

Just enough process for the size of the team, adjusted as the team grows.

Internal tooling

If doing the right thing is a hassle, I build something that makes it easy.

Skills

Languages

TypeScript
JavaScript
Python

Test automation

Maestro
Cypress
Playwright
Appium
CodeceptJS
Mocha

Performance and API testing

Gatling
Postman

CI/CD and engineering tools

Jenkins
Git
GitHub Actions

Product and collaboration

Jira
Notion
Amplitude

Feedback

"Rhys is an incredible performer; he fully applies himself to problems and never stops until he solves the problem no matter how complex."

Senior Backend Developer, ClearScore

"Rhys came in and immediately started improving things! We were in the middle of trying to change how we engage with QA in the team and he had some great suggestions right from the start."

Senior QA, Roam

"He constantly pushed himself beyond what is expected of him in the role. When two senior QAs left, he responded in the most positive way possible: taking charge of QA and testing in the team and making himself available as the go-to person in his project team."

Head of QA, ClearScore

"I've seen nothing but dedication and exceptional output from Rhys. The Halo project simply would not have shipped on time without his contributions - and certainly not at the level of quality and organisation we achieved. It has genuinely been a career highlight for me to manage Rhys."

Senior Engineering Manager, ClearScore/DriveScore

Contact

I'm open to quality engineering, SDET and developer experience roles, or anything close to platform engineering. Ideally somewhere I can shape how a team tests and make developers' lives easier.

Email me LinkedIn GitHub Download CV

Hi, I'm Rhys Thomas. I make testing faster and easier for developers.