It sounded like these tests were only written to validate the backend. Great if that's not the case. I agree that the backend team should test their own stuff.

It sounded like these tests were only written to validate the backend. Great if that's not the case. I agree that the backend team should test their own stuff. End to end testing is a poor substitute for that. There may be value, though, in having some (light?) validation of a dependency, ie. the frontend team validating that the backend is still there. I heard the latest SpringOneTour talk refer to this as "enemy testing". Maybe really bad for internal teams, but I can sympathize when the dependency is external and you don't know when to expect changes.