Role: Automation Test Lead

Location: Orlando, FL – Onsite
Duration: 12 Months

Position Overview:

We are looking for an experienced Automation Test Lead to provide technical leadership for enterprise-level quality engineering and test automation initiatives. This role will own the automation strategy across UI and API testing, lead hands-on automation development, establish engineering standards, and drive continuous improvements in testing efficiency, reliability, and coverage.

The successful candidate will work directly with client stakeholders while coordinating onshore and offshore teams. The role also requires a forward-thinking approach to AI/GenAI-enabled testing, automation modernization, and delivery optimization.

Key Responsibilities:

Automation Strategy & Quality Engineering Leadership

• Establish and execute the overall test automation strategy, roadmap, framework architecture, and delivery approach across UI and API testing.
• Align automation initiatives with business priorities, application releases, quality objectives, and delivery timelines.
• Identify automation bottlenecks and opportunities to improve test coverage, execution speed, stability, maintainability, and overall quality.
• Define and maintain automation engineering standards covering framework architecture, coding practices, reusable libraries, reporting, documentation, traceability, and governance.
• Introduce modern quality engineering practices and continuously evaluate opportunities to improve the automation lifecycle.

UFT Automation

• Lead the development, enhancement, and maintenance of UFT (Unified Functional Testing) automation suites.
• Build and maintain automated coverage for functional and regression testing.
• Improve automation stability, execution reliability, maintainability, and overall suite performance.
• Establish reusable automation components and efficient approaches for business-critical test scenarios.
• Analyze automation failures, perform triage, and drive rapid resolution of unstable or failing tests.

Playwright Web Automation

• Design and develop modern Playwright-based web automation frameworks using scalable and maintainable architecture patterns.
• Establish reusable components, coding standards, and framework structures for efficient web automation.
• Improve test execution speed, reliability, coverage, and maintainability through modern automation techniques.
• Support quick identification and stabilization of failing or flaky automated tests.

API Automation – Postman

• Define and implement the API testing strategy using Postman.
• Develop and maintain Postman collections, scripts, automated API tests, and regression suites.
• Implement API validation covering response verification, contract validation, negative scenarios, error handling, and regression testing.
• Integrate API test results into automation pipelines, dashboards, and stakeholder reporting.
• Establish API quality gates to ensure services meet defined functional and quality expectations.

AI / GenAI Automation Innovation

• Identify and implement AI-assisted testing and automation opportunities to reduce manual effort and accelerate automation development.
• Utilize technologies such as GitHub Copilot to support scripting, test creation, maintenance, and automation productivity.
• Evaluate AI-enabled approaches for automated test generation, script enhancement, maintenance, and quality improvement.
• Explore modern integrations such as Playwright with MCP-style capabilities, where appropriate.
• Maintain an innovation backlog and measure the business impact of AI-enabled automation through metrics such as execution-time reduction, maintenance savings, productivity gains, and test-coverage improvement.

CI/CD & Quality Gates

• Integrate UI and API automation suites into CI/CD pipelines using platforms such as Azure DevOps and Jenkins.
• Ensure automated testing supports repeatable, reliable, and production-ready pipeline execution.
• Establish automation entry and exit criteria and implement quality gates for release validation.
• Provide clear automation results, quality metrics, risks, and release-readiness indicators to technical and business leadership.
• Work with development and DevOps teams to improve pipeline stability and automation execution.

Client & Delivery Leadership

• Serve as the primary onshore automation technical lead for client engagements.
• Communicate automation strategy, project progress, risks, dependencies, issues, and outcomes effectively with client stakeholders.
• Coordinate distributed onshore/offshore teams, assign work, remove technical blockers, and ensure delivery commitments are achieved.
• Provide technical mentoring and guidance to automation engineers.
• Manage governance activities including weekly status reporting, risk and dependency tracking, escalations, delivery metrics, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Influence stakeholders and technical teams through strong communication, technical expertise, and outcome-driven leadership.

Required Qualifications:

• 9+ years of experience in QA, software testing, and test automation.
• At least 3+ years of experience in an automation lead/technical leadership capacity, including stakeholder management and automation delivery ownership.
• Strong hands-on expertise with UFT / Unified Functional Testing and automation framework development.
• Strong experience with Postman, including API testing, scripting, collections, automation, and regression testing.
• Hands-on experience with Playwright and structured web automation framework design.
• Experience integrating automation into CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps, Jenkins, or comparable tools.
• Strong knowledge of Git/version control and modern software delivery practices.
• Demonstrated ability to perform defect triage, root-cause analysis, flaky-test investigation, and automation-suite stabilization.
• Strong understanding of automation reliability, maintainability, reusable framework architecture, and test governance.
• Excellent communication, presentation, stakeholder-management, and client-facing skills.
• Ability to influence technical decisions, drive automation outcomes, and work effectively across distributed teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with AI/GenAI in software testing or automation, including GitHub Copilot, AI-assisted test generation, intelligent automation, or AI-supported maintenance.
• Experience working in large enterprise environments with multiple applications, distributed engineering teams, and parallel release cycles.
• Exposure to retail, point-of-sale (POS), or similar enterprise business domains.
• Experience establishing enterprise-level automation standards, governance models, and quality engineering practices.