A hedge fund that knew exactly what it needed. We built a delivery pipeline for BDD test automation and shipped hundreds of tests in tight, well-specified workpackages over twelve months.
Nephila Capital is a specialist hedge fund focused on catastrophe bonds and insurance-linked securities. Their risk engines are the core of the business: complex financial systems where correctness is not optional and a calculation error has direct monetary consequences.
They had a clear goal: automate as many tests as possible for their risk engines. They knew what they wanted. They needed someone who could deliver it at pace and at quality.
We established a delivery pipeline that turned domain knowledge into executable tests as efficiently as possible. Four steps, repeated in tight cycles across the engagement.
The key insight was that the client's domain expert was the right person to write the specifications, not us. They understood catastrophe bonds. We understood how to turn their understanding into automation. The Gherkin training bridged that gap: once their QA could express test scenarios in structured Given-When-Then format, the rest was execution.
The video walkthroughs served a specific purpose. Gherkin tells you what to test. The video shows you how the system actually behaves, what the screens look like, where the data flows. Combined, they gave our SDETs everything they needed to deliver without constant back-and-forth.
Work was delivered in fixed-scope packages of 10 to 20 tests. Each package had a clear specification, a clear scope, and a clear output. No ambiguity about what "done" meant, because the Gherkin scenarios defined it precisely.
This model gave Nephila predictable costs and predictable timelines. Each package was a self-contained unit of value: specified, delivered, verified, done. Over twelve months, hundreds of tests accumulated into comprehensive coverage of their risk engine workflows.
Three things made this engagement successful. First, the client invested in learning Gherkin properly. That meant specifications arrived clean, precise, and automatable. No interpretation needed.
Second, the video walkthroughs eliminated the context gap that kills most outsourced automation efforts. Our SDETs didn't need access to product owners or domain experts. The brief was the brief.
Third, the workpackage model kept scope tight. Ten to twenty tests is small enough to deliver quickly, large enough to be meaningful. No multi-month epics that drift. No "phase one" that never ends.
Nephila didn't need us to tell them what to test. They needed a team that could take well-specified work and turn it into production-grade automated tests at pace. The discipline was the same as every Testclub engagement: specification first, then automation. But the balance was different. Here, the client owned the specification. We owned the delivery.
If your team knows what needs testing but lacks the automation capacity to deliver it, this model works. Tight specifications in, working tests out, in predictable packages at a predictable cost.
Need automation capacity for well-defined testing work? Let’s talk.