Lead QA Automation Engineer
Contract End Date: 3/21/27
India
About the RoleThe QA Automation Lead Engineer is a senior, hands-on technical leader responsible for establishing scalable automation architecture, reusable frameworks, engineering standards, and CI/CD integration across delivery teams. The role leads through technical expertise — coding alongside engineers, resolving complex automation challenges, and enabling the responsible use of AI in quality engineering.
This is a technical leadership role, distinct from the QA Manager's primary accountability for people leadership, portfolio governance, and organizational outcomes.Essential Duties
- Provide hands-on technical leadership for web and API automation, including direct development, review, debugging, and optimization of Playwright and Selenium solutions.
- Architect, build, and maintain reusable automation frameworks, libraries, fixtures, utilities, reporting, and test data capabilities that can be adopted across teams.
- Define automation patterns, coding standards, review practices, quality gates, and technical guidance for reliable and maintainable tests.
- Lead the integration of automated tests into CI/CD pipelines and establish practical approaches for execution speed, parallelization, environment management, and failure analysis.
- Partner with delivery teams to assess automation needs, select fit-for-purpose tools, and create adoption roadmaps aligned with application risk and technology architecture.
- Prototype and evaluate approved AI-assisted quality engineering use cases for test design, automation code generation, test maintenance, test data creation, defect triage, and quality insights.
- Define guardrails and review practices for AI-generated test assets, including human validation, secure data handling, traceability, and maintainability.
- Coach Senior Engineers and other QA professionals through code reviews, pairing, technical workshops, and reusable examples.
- Provide technical recommendations on emerging automation and AI capabilities and translate them into pragmatic engineering standards.
- Lead complex automation initiatives across onshore, co-sourced, and offshore teams, and communicate progress, risks, adoption, and measurable outcomes.
Technical Skills
- Advanced hands-on expertise with Playwright and Selenium, including framework design, reusable components, debugging, parallel execution, and cross-browser testing.
- Strong software engineering skills in JavaScript or TypeScript, plus at least one additional language such as C#, Java, or Python.
- Advanced experience with API automation, REST, OpenAPI/Swagger, Postman, service virtualization, and back-end validation.
- Experience architecting automation for cloud-based, distributed, and enterprise applications.
- Deep knowledge of Azure DevOps or comparable CI/CD platforms, source control, branching, pull requests, automated quality gates, and test reporting.
- Hands-on experience with generative AI or AI coding assistants (e.g., Microsoft Copilot, GitHub Copilot, Azure AI, or comparable tools) for quality engineering.
- Ability to evaluate AI output, define responsible-use controls, and coach teams on effective prompts and human review.
- Strong knowledge of SDLC, Agile, BDD, risk-based testing, continuous testing, and quality metrics.
Experience and Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- Minimum of 6 years of quality assurance, test automation, or quality engineering experience.
- Proven experience implementing automation frameworks and automated testing within CI/CD pipelines.
- Experience leading complex technical initiatives across multiple applications or delivery teams.
Leadership Expectations
- Remains hands-on and is accountable for technical direction, framework architecture, engineering standards, and cross-team enablement.
- Leads technical delivery and mentors engineers without requiring direct people-management responsibility.
- Partners with the QA Manager on capability priorities, investment decisions, staffing needs, governance, and success measures.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with performance, accessibility, visual, mobile, or contract testing.
- Experience with Selenium Grid or other distributed execution approaches.
- Experience establishing an automation community of practice or center of excellence.
Role DifferentiationDimensionSenior EngineerLead EngineerQA ManagerPrimary focusHands-on delivery for assigned products and featuresTechnical direction, frameworks, and enablement across teamsPeople leadership, portfolio strategy, governance, and outcomesAutomation depthBuilds and maintains tests; contributes to frameworksArchitects and codes reusable frameworks, patterns, and pipeline integrationsSets expectations and reviews direction; hands-on depth preferred, not primary accountabilityAI leverageUses approved AI tools to accelerate individual testing workDefines repeatable AI-assisted engineering practices and coaches teamsGoverns responsible adoption, investment, capability, and measurable valueLeadership scopeMentors peers and may guide small delivery effortsLeads technical work across teams without requiring people-management accountabilityManages and develops people; aligns stakeholders and delivery priorities
Pay: ₹323,643.07 - ₹1,402,191.28 per year
Work Location: Remote