Principal Test Automation Engineer
About the role
Locations: Chicago IL or Columbus OH. Job Type: Full-Time. Work Authorization: Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States without current or future employer sponsorship; visa sponsorship is not available for this position. Overview: We are seeking a highly skilled Automation Architect to lead enterprise-scale automation modernization initiatives, including migration of legacy automation assets to modern Playwright-based frameworks. This role requires deep hands-on expertise in Playwright, Python, automation architecture, and AI-enabled software delivery practices. The ideal candidate has extensive experience building automation frameworks from scratch, leading modernization programs, and providing technical leadership across complex enterprise environments. Candidates must have strong hands-on Playwright and Python expertise. This is not a managerial or governance-focused architecture role; the selected candidate will be expected to actively design, build, and guide development of enterprise automation frameworks.
Responsibilities
- Lead automation modernization and migration programs, including assessment, planning, architecture, and execution.
- Design, develop, and implement scalable automation frameworks using Playwright and Python.
- Establish architecture standards, reusable components, coding guidelines, and automation best practices.
- Provide technical leadership across Web, API, Desktop, and Database automation domains.
- Partner with business stakeholders, application teams, and quality engineering organizations to define migration strategies and automation roadmaps.
- Drive proof-of-concepts, architecture reviews, technical assessments, and solution recommendations.
- Design and implement AI-assisted automation solutions to improve testing efficiency, migration throughput, and delivery quality.
- Guide CI/CD integration strategies and automation execution pipelines.
- Identify risks, dependencies, and technical challenges while driving mitigation strategies.
- Mentor engineering teams and provide hands-on leadership throughout the modernization journey.
Requirements
- 12+ years of Test Automation and Quality Engineering experience.
- 5+ years of Automation Architecture experience.
- Strong hands-on expertise with Playwright.
- Strong Python development experience.
- Experience with TypeScript and/or JavaScript.
- Proven experience building enterprise automation frameworks from scratch.
- Expertise in Web Automation, API Automation, Desktop Automation, Database Automation.
- Strong experience with CI/CD tools including GitHub, Azure DevOps, and Jenkins.
- Experience leading automation modernization and migration initiatives.
- Strong architecture leadership, stakeholder management, and executive communication skills.
- Experience with AI-native SDLC practices.
- Hands-on experience with Agentic AI, Prompt Engineering, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), Large Language Model (LLM) Integrations.
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience migrating automation assets from Tosca to Playwright.
- Experience with PDF automation.
- Experience with Email automation.
- Experience with Mainframe automation.
- Experience establishing and supporting Automation Centers of Excellence (CoE