R&D Automation QA Engineer

Job Description:

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Senior Quality Assurance Engineer to join our dynamic team. This role is crucial for ensuring the highest quality of our enterprise-grade applications, particularly within the monitoring and observability domain. The successful candidate will be instrumental in designing, developing, and executing comprehensive manual and automated test strategies to validate complex software systems, ensuring reliability, performance, and user satisfaction. This position requires a strong blend of hands-on testing expertise, advanced automation capabilities, and a deep understanding of software deployment processes.

Key Responsibilities:

• Test Strategy & Planning: Develop, implement, and maintain comprehensive test strategies, test plans, and test cases for complex enterprise-grade applications.
• Manual & Exploratory Testing: Perform thorough manual and exploratory testing to identify defects, validate functionality, and ensure adherence to requirements across various stages of the software development lifecycle.
• Automation Framework Design & Development: Design, develop, and maintain robust and scalable automation test suites and frameworks, from scratch or by extending existing ones.
• Web UI Automation: Implement and optimize automated tests for web user interfaces using tools like Selenium, ensuring cross-browser compatibility and responsiveness.
• API Automation: Develop and execute automated tests for RESTful APIs to ensure data integrity, performance, security, and functionality.
• Framework Expertise: Leverage and integrate industry-standard automation frameworks such as TestNG and Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) frameworks (e.g., Cucumber, Behave) to enhance test coverage and collaboration.
• Scripting & Tools: Utilize advanced Python scripting for test automation, utility development, data manipulation, and integration with CI/CD pipelines.
• Containerized Application Testing: Participate in the testing and validation of containerized applications, understanding their deployment, configuration, and behavior within container orchestration platforms (e.g., Kubernetes, OpenShift).
• Defect Management: Accurately identify, document, prioritize, and track defects using appropriate bug tracking systems, working closely with development teams for timely resolution.
• Domain Focus: Apply expertise in monitoring and observability concepts to ensure the quality, accuracy, and reliability of related application features.
• Continuous Improvement: Advocate for and implement best practices in QA, test automation, and continuous testing within the CI/CD pipeline.
• Collaboration & Mentorship: Collaborate closely with product managers, developers, and DevOps engineers to understand requirements, define testable user stories, and ensure a smooth delivery process. Potentially mentor junior QA team members.

Required Skills & Experience:

• Experience: 8+ years of professional software industry experience in Quality Assurance, with a significant emphasis on test automation.
• Manual & Automation Testing: Demonstrated expertise in both manual testing methodologies and designing/implementing complex automation test suites for enterprise-grade applications.
• Automation Frameworks: Extensive hands-on experience with automation frameworks such as Selenium WebDriver, TestNG, and BDD frameworks (e.g., Cucumber, SpecFlow, Behave).
• Web UI Automation: Proven ability to build and maintain robust automated tests for web-based user interfaces.
• API Testing: Strong experience in automating tests for RESTful APIs using relevant tools and libraries (e.g., Requests in Python, Postman automation, Karate DSL).
• Scripting: Advanced proficiency in Python scripting for test automation, data generation, and custom utility development.
• Containerization Familiarity: Practical experience with containerization technologies (Docker) and an understanding of how to test applications deployed in containerized environments (Kubernetes, OpenShift).
• Domain Knowledge: Previous experience with applications in the monitoring and observability space (e.g., logging, metrics, tracing, alerts, dashboards) is highly preferred.
• Test Management & Version Control: Proficiency with test management tools (e.g., Jira, Azure DevOps, Zephyr) and version control systems (e.g., Git, GitHub).
• Problem-Solving: Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, with a meticulous attention to detail and a proactive approach to quality.
• Communication: Strong verbal and written communication skills to effectively collaborate with technical and non-technical stakeholders across teams.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience with performance and load testing tools (e.g., JMeter, Locust).
• Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Experience with other programming languages relevant to testing (e.g., Java, JavaScript).
• Understanding of microservices architecture and associated testing intricacies.
• Experience in setting up and managing CI/CD pipelines for automated test execution.