Senior QA Automation Engineer
About the role
Buildout is the AI deal engine for CRE brokerages, automating every step from first contact to commission. We handle the workflows behind the scenes, turning manual processes into intelligent, scalable systems. Trusted by over 50,000 brokers, Buildout powers more profitable deals from lead to close.
Opportunity
We're hiring our first dedicated automation engineer to own end-to-end test automation across our products. Today, our developers write Playwright tests as part of feature work, but we need someone to take real ownership: set the direction for how we do E2E testing, backfill coverage for the critical user journeys we're missing, keep the suite fast and trustworthy, and raise the bar for how the whole engineering team writes tests.
How You’ll Contribute
Own the E2E test suite. Design, build, and maintain end-to-end automated tests in Playwright (TypeScript) covering our critical user journeys across products.
Backfill and prioritize coverage. Audit what we have, identify the highest-risk gaps, and systematically close them.
Kill flakiness. Own suite reliability end to end: root-cause flaky tests, establish quarantine and retry policies, manage test data and environment stability, and keep signal-to-noise high enough that a red build means something.
Shape CI integration. Partner with our DevOps engineer on where tests run in the pipeline, execution frequency, parallelization, runtime budgets, and merge/deploy gating.
Test at the right layer. Know when a check belongs at the API or integration layer instead of the browser, and structure the suite so it stays fast as it grows.
Enable the team. Coach developers on writing good Playwright tests, review test code, and establish patterns, utilities, and documentation so test authorship scales beyond you.
Report on quality. Co-own quality metrics including test coverage of critical paths, suite reliability, and defect escape rate, and communicate trends to engineering leadership.
Use modern tooling. Leverage AI-assisted development (we use Claude Code across engineering) and Playwright's evolving tooling to accelerate test authoring and maintenance.
What Makes a Great Candidate
5+ years in quality engineering, test automation, or software engineering with a strong automation focus.
Deep hands-on Playwright expertise. You've built and maintained substantial E2E suites, not just contributed tests to one.
Strong TypeScript/JavaScript proficiency. You write test code you'd be comfortable shipping to production.
CI/CD fluency. Experience integrating and operating test suites in pipelines (GitHub Actions, Jenkins, CircleCI, or similar), including parallelization and selective execution strategies.
A track record of fixing flakiness. You can talk concretely about how you diagnosed and eliminated unreliable tests at scale.
Independence and ownership. You can take an ambiguous mandate ("our test coverage needs to be better") and turn it into a prioritized plan you drive to completion.
Teaching instincts. You've mentored engineers, run code reviews, or otherwise raised a team's testing bar.
Nice to Have
API-layer test automation experience (REST, contract testing).
Experience defining quality metrics (defect escape rate, coverage models) and reporting to leadership.
Familiarity with Ruby on Rails applications (our primary application stack - you won't write much Ruby, but you'll test Rails apps).
Experience with test data management, environment provisioning, or Docker-based test infrastructure.
Experience using AI-assisted tools (Claude Code, Copilot, Playwright codegen/MCP) in a testing workflow.
Role Details
Location: This is a fully remote role open across most of the US.
Compensation: The targeted compensation range for this position is $130,000 - $150,000.
Reporting To: Alan Spadoni, our SVP of Engineering
Perks & Benefits
Impactful insurance and benefit options, including 2 medical plans to choose from, 100% coverage of employee dental and vision insurance premiums, HSA seed, company-paid STD, LTD, life insurance, and telemedicine, and a wellness benefit of $400/year.
Policies that support a healthy work/life harmony, including Flexible PTO, 14 paid company holidays, paid parental leave, and give back days
401(k) with 4% company match and immediate vesting
A fully remote work culture with a monthly remote work reimbursement ($600/year) to support our distributed team and an annual, in-person company kickoff
A wonderfully quirky culture where you’re encouraged to bring your whole self to work
Equal Opportunity Employer
Buildout is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, marital status, order of protection status, citizenship status, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please contact us by email at accommodations@buildout.com and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information and we will consider your request.
Identity Information
If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process, or for an interview, please contact us by email at accommodations@buildout.com.