Lead Automation Test Engineer

About the role

We are seeking a Lead Automation Test Engineer who is hands-on, customer-facing, and focused on enabling the QA team to effectively use AI tools to improve testing speed, quality, and efficiency.

Responsibilities

• Lead and drive a team of senior automation engineers, assigning, tracking, and following up on tasks to ensure timely, high-quality delivery.
• Own delivery of customer commitments, working closely with the team to meet agreed timelines even amid ongoing enhancements and periodic production issues, and proactively communicating any deviations to the customer.
• Lead AI enablement for the QA/testing team by evaluating, piloting, and implementing AI tools that improve productivity and automation quality.
• Establish reusable prompt templates and AI-assisted workflows for test generation, automation development, Selenium-to-Playwright migration, API testing, failure triage, flaky test analysis, and requirements coverage analysis.
• Lead modernization of the existing Selenium automation suite, including migration to Playwright using AI-assisted tools and reusable framework patterns.
• Provide hands-on automation leadership for functional, integration, API, regression, and end-to-end testing.
• Analyze the current regression suite and implement improvements to reduce flaky tests, long execution cycles, and manual triage effort.
• Use AI-assisted methods to analyze high-level requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria to identify automation coverage gaps and guide the team in closing them.
• Serve as a customer-facing technical lead who can explain, justify, and defend AI tool choices, migration strategy, framework design, and automation recommendations.
• Quickly produce prototypes, proof-of-concepts, sample migrations, and working automation to demonstrate value to the customer.
• Coach QA engineers and team members on effective use of AI tools, prompt templates, Playwright, automation standards, and quality engineering practices.
• Collaborate with developers, product owners, Scrum Masters, DevOps engineers, business stakeholders, and customer representatives in a SAFe Agile environment.
• Create and maintain concise documentation, including automation standards, AI usage guidance, prompt libraries, migration approach, and tool evaluation summaries.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field, or equivalent experience.
• Typically requires 8–10 years of related experience, including at least 5 years of hands-on test automation experience.
• Demonstrated experience leading and driving automation teams, including task planning, follow-up, and on-time delivery of customer commitments while managing competing priorities such as enhancements and production issues.
• Hands-on experience with AI-enabled testing tools such as Testim, mabl, Functionize, Applitools, GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, or similar tools.
• Experience creating prompt libraries, AI usage standards, or repeatable AI-assisted workflows for software testing teams.
• Experience using AI tools for test generation, automation development, test maintenance, failure analysis, regression analysis, coverage gap analysis, or productivity improvement.
• Experience evaluating emerging AI/testing tools and recommending practical adoption strategies based on value, scalability, maintainability, security considerations, and customer needs.
• Experience with automation tools and frameworks such as Selenium WebDriver/Grid, Playwright, Cucumber/Gherkin, JUnit, and TestNG.
• Experience with API/services testing tools such as Postman and REST Assured.
• Strong programming experience in one or more languages, preferably Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, or Python.
• Experience with manual, functional, regression, integration, and end-to-end testing.
• Experience improving automation efficiency through framework design, test optimization, parallel execution, CI/CD integration, reporting, and test stabilization.
• Experience with Jira, Confluence, GitHub/Bitbucket, XML, JSON, SQL, and IDEs such as VS Code, IntelliJ, or Eclipse.
• Strong customer-facing communication skills with the ability to explain technical concepts, justify recommendations, defend AI/tool/framework decisions, and proactively communicate delivery status and deviations.
• Strong troubleshooting skills with the ability to diagnose flaky tests, automation failures, test data issues, CI/CD issues, and environment-related problems.
• Experience with Agile/Scrum methodologies; SAFe Agile experience preferred.
• Must be self-directed, proactive, hands-on, and able to produce results with minimal supervision.
• Availability during core business hours of 9:00 AM–5:00 PM EST.
• Able to obtain and maintain a Public Trust clearance.

Qualifications

• Required Qualifications:
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field, or equivalent experience.
• Typically requires 8–10 years of related experience, including at least 5 years of hands-on test automation experience.
• Demonstrated experience leading and driving automation teams, including task planning, follow-up, and on-time delivery of customer commitments while managing competing priorities such as enhancements and production issues.
• Hands-on experience with AI-enabled testing tools such as Testim, mabl, Functionize, Applitools, GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, or similar tools.
• Experience creating prompt libraries, AI usage standards, or repeatable AI-assisted workflows for software testing teams.
• Experience using AI tools for test generation, automation development, test maintenance, failure analysis, regression analysis, coverage gap analysis, or productivity improvement.
• Experience evaluating emerging AI/testing tools and recommending practical adoption strategies based on value, scalability, maintainability, security considerations, and customer needs.
• Experience with automation tools and frameworks such as Selenium WebDriver/Grid, Playwright, Cucumber/Gherkin, JUnit, and TestNG.
• Experience with API/services testing tools such as Postman and REST Assured.
• Strong programming experience in one or more languages, preferably Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, or Python.
• Experience with manual, functional, regression, integration, and end-to-end testing.
• Experience improving automation efficiency through framework design, test optimization, parallel execution, CI/CD integration, reporting, and test stabilization.
• Experience with Jira, Confluence, GitHub/Bitbucket, XML, JSON, SQL, and IDEs such as VS Code, IntelliJ, or Eclipse.
• Strong customer-facing communication skills with the ability to explain technical concepts, justify recommendations, defend AI/tool/framework decisions, and proactively communicate delivery status and deviations.
• Strong troubleshooting skills with the ability to diagnose flaky tests, automation failures, test data issues, CI/CD issues, and environment-related problems.
• Experience with Agile/Scrum methodologies; SAFe Agile experience preferred.
• Must be self-directed, proactive, hands-on, and able to produce results with minimal supervision.
• Available during core business hours of 9:00 AM–5:00 PM EST.
• Able to obtain and maintain a Public Trust clearance.

Preferred Qualifications

• Candidates in the Eastern, Central, or Mountain time zones.
• Experience supporting US federal government contracts.
• One of the below certifications will be an advantage:
• ISTQB/ISEB/Certified Software Testing credentials: ISTQB Certified Tester (Advanced Level – Test Analyst / Test Manager) or equivalent.
• Playwright/Selenium automation validation (preferred): vendor/community-recognized automation credential(s) for Playwright or Selenium.
• Cloud testing & infrastructure - AWS Certified Developer/DevOps Engineer, or equivalent.

Things to Know

• Commitment to Non-Discrimination
• All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to disability, status as a protected veteran or any other status protected by applicable federal, state, local, or international law.
• Salary Range: The proposed salary range for this role is $160,000 to $180,000 USD.
• Clearance Information: This position requires the eligibility to obtain a security clearance.
• Location: To be considered for this role, you must reside in one of the following states: CA, CO, DC, FL, GA, IL, MD, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OK, PA, SC, TX, VA, WV.
• Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S.
• We may consider candidates currently in H-1B status who are eligible for transfer.