Lead QA Automation Engineer
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Overview
Job Description
Position: Lead QA Automation Engineer
Location: Basking Ridge, NJ, 07920
Job Type: 12 months contract
Work Arrangement: On-site Role
Interview Process: 2 rounds of video interviews
Key Responsibilities:
Quality Strategy & Leadership
Define and implement enterprise-level Quality Engineering strategy across multiple applications and programs
Establish best practices for test automation, CI/CD integration, and shift-left quality engineering
Drive adoption of AI-augmented testing (Gemini, GitHub Copilot, Agentic Testing) across teams
Act as quality gatekeeper — ensuring zero-defect leakage into production
Technical Leadership & Architecture
Design and oversee scalable, reusable automation frameworks (UI, API, E2E)
Lead transition from legacy frameworks to next-gen architectures — Playwright, Serenity BDD, MCP-based systems
Define test architecture standards, coding practices, and framework governance
Establish robust test data strategies including synthetic and AI-generated datasets
Agile Delivery & Program Ownership
Own QA delivery across multiple Agile teams or Agile Release Trains (ARTs)
Ensure timely completion of functional, regression, and integration test cycles
Proactively identify and manage risks, dependencies, and delivery bottlenecks
Provide clear, data-driven quality metrics and release readiness updates to leadership
Team Mentorship & Collaboration
Mentor and guide QA engineers in manual, automation, and AI-driven testing practices
Conduct code reviews, test design reviews, and enforce engineering excellence
Collaborate with developers, product owners, architects, and business stakeholders for early quality engagement
Foster a strong quality-first culture within the team
Advanced Testing & Defect Management
Oversee E2E, API, system integration, and regression testing strategies
Lead Sev-1/Sev-2 incident management, root cause analysis, and preventive quality measures
Drive continuous improvement through defect trend analysis and test coverage optimization
AI-Augmented Engineering
Lead adoption of AI-powered test generation and optimization tools
Implement self-healing automation frameworks and intelligent test maintenance
Establish processes for leveraging AI in test case design, debugging, and productivity enhancement
Required Skills & Qualifications
Core Technical Skills
- 8+ years of QA experience with proven leadership across large-scale or multi-team telecom programs
- Deep expertise in Selenium with Java and modern tools like Playwright
- Strong experience designing and maintaining enterprise automation frameworks
- Expertise in E2E, integration, and API testing (REST Assured, Postman)
- Extensive experience with CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitLab, GitHub Actions) for release gating
- Advanced knowledge of Test Data Management (TDM) including synthetic data strategies
- Hands-on experience with AI tools (Gemini, GitHub Copilot) in engineering workflows
- Ability to define and track KPIs — defect density, leakage, test coverage, and execution health
Domain & Preferred Skills
- Telecom domain experience (OSS/BSS, revenue workflow validation) strongly preferred
- Deep understanding of Agile/SAFe frameworks and Agile Release Trains (ART)
- Knowledge of service assurance, incident management, and network inventory systems (LFIM, CND)
- Familiarity with field service tools — Optix Dispatch, VzOT, Tech360
- Experience with TestNG, Cucumber, Serenity BDD test frameworks
Education
Bachelor's degree in computer science / engineering or equivalent practical experience.
Automate your job search with Sonara.
Submit 10x as many applications with less effort than one manual application.
