QA Automation Engineer

Role Overview

Hiring a QA Automation Engineer to establish, own, and lead automated testing practice across the company’s web products. This is a foundational, high-autonomy leadership role—there is currently no dedicated QA function, so you will build the QA strategy from the ground up.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end QA strategy: test pyramid, coverage targets, release gates, and QA ownership expectations.
• Build and lead automation:
  • E2E/UI automation using Playwright (or compatible approach)
  • Integration/API checks for critical workflows
• Integrate testing into CI/CD:
  • PR gating with fast smoke checks
  • Scheduled regression
  • Release-branch validation
  • Manage artifacts (screenshots, traces, videos, logs) and flake mitigation
• Define test data & environment strategy:
  • fixtures, seeding, mocks vs real services, stable test accounts
  • parallelization strategy
• Set up performance/load testing using k6 (or similar tools), establish baselines, and collaborate on bottlenecks across frontend/API/database/infrastructure.
• Establish quality ownership model across engineering pods (e.g., QA-buddy pattern) and mentor developers on testable code.
• Automation-first improvements to reduce manual overhead (test triggers, reporting, defect routing, release-readiness signals) and build workflow automation (e.g., n8n).
• Perform targeted manual/exploratory testing for UX validation and edge cases; document risk and go/no-go recommendations.
• Track key quality metrics: pass rate, runtime, flake rate, defect escape rate, regression effectiveness.

Requirements

• 5+ years of professional QA / test automation experience for modern web apps, including demonstrated ownership/lead-level scope.
• Strong Playwright (or equivalent E2E framework).
• Proficiency in JavaScript/TypeScript to build and maintain automation frameworks, helpers, fixtures, and CI integrations.
• Strong front-end debugging skills: browser behavior, DOM/network debugging, auth/session flows, caching, reliable selectors.
• Back-end fundamentals: REST APIs, request/response debugging, and database literacy for test setup/validation.
• Experience with API testing (e.g., Postman/Swagger plus code-driven checks).
• Experience with CI/CD and Git-based workflows (e.g., GitHub Actions).
• Ability to operate independently: define priorities, build systems, and drive outcomes without a pre-defined backlog.
• Strong written communication and clarity in ambiguous environments.