Senior QA Automation Lead

Location: Pittsburgh, PA

Contract: W2 only, 9 month contract with potential for extension or conversion to full time with either the client or CEI

Pay: $70/hour + optional medical, dental, vision, 401(k) match

Overview

Our client is seeking a highly experienced Senior QA Automation Lead to join a critical software engineering team supporting banking platforms and digital transformation initiatives. This individual will serve as the primary QA leader embedded within the development team, driving quality engineering best practices, test automation, and continuous testing across the software delivery lifecycle. The ideal candidate is a hands-on quality engineering professional with deep expertise in test automation, CI/CD pipelines, modern software development practices, and banking applications.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as the dedicated quality engineering lead for assigned application development teams.
• Design, develop, and maintain automated test frameworks and test suites for web applications, APIs, and backend services.
• Integrate automated testing into CI/CD pipelines to support continuous testing and rapid software delivery.
• Collaborate closely with software engineers, product owners, architects, and business stakeholders throughout the SDLC.
• Establish and promote quality engineering best practices, standards, and governance.
• Lead test strategy development, test planning, test execution, and defect management activities.
• Utilize AI-enabled testing tools and emerging technologies to improve test coverage, efficiency, and defect detection.
• Perform functional, integration, regression, performance, and end-to-end testing as required.
• Assist in root cause analysis and production issue investigations.
• Mentor development teams on test automation, quality engineering, and shift-left testing approaches.
• Ensure applications meet security, compliance, and regulatory requirements common within banking and financial services environments.

Required Skills

• 8+ years of software quality assurance experience (in Banking/Financial Institutions)
• 5+ years of hands-on test automation experience.
• Strong experience testing REST APIs and service-based/cloud applications.
• Hands-on experience developing automated tests in C#/.NET.
• Experience integrating automated testing into Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience with test case management, regression testing, exploratory testing, and defect management.
• Ability to validate data across APIs and databases.
• Familiarity with Azure-hosted applications.
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication and collaboration abilities.

Required Education

• No Education Requirements

Preferred Skills

• Experience within banking, financial services, lending, payments, or regulated industries.
• Knowledge of cloud platforms such as Azure.
• Experience leveraging AI-assisted testing tools and automation accelerators.
• Familiarity with test data management and service virtualization solutions.
• Performance testing experience using JMeter, LoadRunner, or similar tools.
• Experience supporting highly available enterprise applications.
• Prior experience functioning as a QA Lead or Quality Engineering Lead embedded within software engineering teams.

Why Should I Apply?

This role offers the opportunity to lead quality initiatives in a dynamic banking environment, working on modernizing critical platforms and influencing strategic technology directions. Candidates will have the chance to collaborate with innovative teams and shape scalable, future-proof solutions.

About CEI:

As a trusted technology partner, CEI delivers solutions that help our customers transform their business and achieve meaningful results. From strategy and custom application development through application management - our technology and digital experience services are tailored to meet each unique need of our customers. Our staffing solutions bring specialized skills to complement our customers' workforce and project requirements.

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