1. Test Automation Framework Architecture

Design, build, and evolve scalable test automation frameworks for UI, API, mobile, and service-layer testing

Define framework architecture patterns (page object models, service abstractions, data builders, fixtures)

that scale across teams and products

Own framework versioning, backward compatibility, and migration strategy

Build reusable libraries, utilities, and test harnesses that reduce duplication across teams

Ensure frameworks are maintainable, debuggable, and approachable for engineers at different skill levels

2. Tooling Strategy & Roadmap

Evaluate, benchmark, and recommend testing tools across categories: functional automation, API testing,

performance, contract testing, visual regression, accessibility, chaos, observability

Own the multi-quarter tooling roadmap and drive consolidation where teams have diverged

Make build-vs-buy decisions and lead POCs for new tooling

Partner with DevOps/Platform teams on test infrastructure: parallelization, containerized test environments,

ephemeral environments, test data management

Optimize test execution cost, speed, and reliability across CI/CD pipelines

3. Cross-Team Standards & Quality Engineering Practices

Define and publish testing standards: what gets automated at which layer, coverage expectations, naming

conventions, code review criteria for test code

Establish the test pyramid strategy appropriate to each product (unit / integration / contract / E2E balance)

Drive shift-left practices: developer-owned testing, contract testing, test-in-production patterns, feature flag-

based testing

Define non-functional testing strategy: performance baselines, security testing integration, accessibility,

resilience testing

Create playbooks, decision frameworks, and reference implementations that teams can adopt without

reinventing

4. Automation Strategy

Define automation strategy at the product and platform level — what to automate, at what layer, with what

tool, and why

Set targets for automation coverage, flakiness thresholds, and execution time budgets

Diagnose and lead remediation of systemic flakiness, slow suites, and unreliable environments

Design test data strategy: synthetic data generation, data masking, environment seeding, state management

5. Technical Mentorship & Enablement

Coach SDETs and senior QA engineers on framework design, code quality, and architectural thinking

Run internal workshops, code review forums, and architecture reviews for test code

Author technical documentation, ADRs (architecture decision records), and contribution guides for test

frameworks

Influence hiring bar for SDET and senior QA roles

6. Strategic Partnership

Partner with Engineering Architects and Product on testability of new features and systems

Represent QA in design reviews, ensuring observability, testability, and quality attributes are designed in —

not bolted on

Provide technical input on release strategy, rollout patterns (canary, blue-green), and production validation

Track industry trends in quality engineering and bring relevant practices into the organization

Required Skills & Qualifications

Technical Depth

Expert-level proficiency in at least one of Java, Python, TypeScript, or JavaScript — sufficient to architect

frameworks that other engineers will build on

Deep hands-on expertise designing automation frameworks with tools like Selenium, Playwright, Cypress,

WebdriverIO, Appium, or equivalent

Strong API and service-layer testing experience: REST Assured, Karate, Postman/Newman, contract testing

(Pact)

Solid understanding of distributed systems, microservices, event-driven architectures, and the testing

challenges they introduce

Proficient with CI/CD systems (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, GitLab CI) — including pipeline design,

parallelization, and test orchestration

Comfortable with Docker, Kubernetes, and containerized test environments

Working knowledge of at least one cloud platform (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and cloud-native testing patterns

Quality Engineering Expertise

Test pyramid design and layered testing strategy

Performance testing principles (JMeter, k6, Gatling, or Locust) — able to define strategy, even if specialists

execute

Security testing awareness (OWASP Top 10, SAST/DAST integration in pipelines)

Accessibility testing (WCAG, axe, automated a11y in CI)

Test data management and environment strategy

Observability for test environments (logs, traces, metrics) and using production telemetry to inform testing

Architectural Skills

Can read and review production code, not just test code

Comfortable making technology trade-off decisions and documenting the reasoning

Experience defining standards that work across teams with different contexts

Soft Skills

Strong written communication — this role produces standards, ADRs, and guides that others rely on

Influence without authority: ability to drive adoption across teams that don't report to you

Pragmatic — chooses the simplest solution that solves the problem, not the most sophisticated

Collaborative with engineering, product, and platform teams

Experience

10+ years in software quality engineering, with at least 3 years in a senior SDET, Principal QA, or Test

Architect capacity

Proven track record of building automation frameworks adopted by multiple teams

Experience working in product engineering organizations with continuous delivery practices

Quality Assurance Architect