Automation Test Engineer

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced Automation Test Engineer to drive the quality strategy for our product and lead a blended team of manual and automation testers. You will define test approaches, set quality standards, manage day-to-day team execution, and act as the primary quality stakeholder in release planning while staying hands-on enough to guide automation architecture and review critical test cases.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end test strategy and test plan for assigned products/releases, covering functional, regression, integration, and automation coverage.
• Lead, mentor, and manage a team of manual and automation QA engineers including sprint planning, task allocation, and performance reviews.
• Drive automation framework design, tool selection, and coverage roadmap in partnership with automation engineers.
• Define and track quality metrics (defect density, test coverage, automation ROI, escape rate) and report status to engineering leadership.
• Act as the primary QA point of contact in sprint ceremonies, release planning, and go/no-go decisions.
• Review test plans, test cases, and automation scripts authored by the team to ensure quality and consistency.
• Coordinate with development, product and (where applicable) performance/security testing teams to ensure end-to-end release quality.
• Champion QA best practices, process improvements, and tooling upgrades (test management, CI/CD integration, shift-left testing).
• Flexible to work with USA time zone.
• Manage resourcing, hiring inputs, and capacity planning for the QA team.

Must-Have Skills

• 7 years of overall QA experience, including 4+ years in a hands-on test automation role and 3+ years leading/managing manual and automation QA teams.
• Strong hands-on experience with automation frameworks/tools such as Selenium using Java, Python.
• Proven experience managing a team (direct reports or matrixed) spanning both manual and automation testers.
• Solid understanding of the STLC/SDLC, Agile/Scrum practices, and release management processes.
• Experience with API testing (Postman/REST Assured) and CI/CD integration.
• Hands-on experience with test management and defect tracking tools.
• Strong stakeholder management, planning, and communication skills, with the ability to represent QA in cross-functional discussions.
• Demonstrated ability to build and evolve a test automation strategy, including ROI-driven prioritization of automation coverage.
• Strong at Debugging/Troubleshooting/Log Analysis.
• Strong in SQL queries writing and DB concepts.

Good-to-Have Skills

• Exposure to performance testing (JMeter/LoadRunner) or security testing basics.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP) and containerized test environments (Docker/Kubernetes).
• Familiarity with BDD frameworks and shift-left/shift-right testing practices.
• Prior experience in a product-based environment working on Enterprise application.

Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field.
• Demonstrated people-management or mentorship experience, even if informal (e.g., leading a pod or workstream).
• Strong ownership mindset with the ability to balance hands-on contribution with team leadership.

TOTAL EXPERIENCE

7+ years overall (4+ years in automation; 3+ years in team management role)

EMPLOYMENT TYPE

Full-time, Permanent

LOCATION

Hyderabad