Lead QA Automation Engineer

Lead QA Automation Engineer

Location: Minneapolis, MN (Downtown)

12 month contract to perm

We are seeking a Lead QA Automation Engineer to help establish and advance automated testing practices across modern software applications. This is a hands-on technical leadership role for someone who can design automation frameworks, set quality standards, mentor team members, and partner closely with engineering and product teams.

The initial focus will be supporting a greenfield application and building the automation approach from the ground up.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain scalable automated testing frameworks and test suites
• Establish QA automation standards, coding practices, reusable patterns, and quality gates
• Lead automation efforts across UI, API, integration, regression, smoke, and end-to-end testing
• Integrate automated testing into CI/CD pipelines and release processes
• Partner with developers to improve testability, troubleshoot defects, and identify issues earlier in the development lifecycle
• Lead technical QA discussions and provide guidance on automation strategy and tooling
• Mentor engineers and QA team members on automation design, code quality, and testing best practices
• Develop test strategies based on application risk, business requirements, and user needs
• Support test data, environments, reporting, and release readiness
• Evaluate new automation tools and technologies that can improve quality and delivery efficiency

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in software engineering, quality engineering, or test automation
• 5+ years of hands-on QA automation experience
• Demonstrated experience leading, mentoring, or providing technical direction to other engineers or QA professionals
• Experience designing or building production-grade automation frameworks
• Strong experience with UI, API, integration, regression, and end-to-end automated testing
• Experience integrating automated tests with CI/CD pipelines
• Experience establishing automation standards and reusable testing practices
• Strong debugging, troubleshooting, and defect analysis skills
• Experience with REST APIs, modern application architectures, and Agile development
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• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or equivalent experience

Preferred Experience

• AWS or other cloud-based environments
• Accessibility, performance, security, or reliability testing
• Docker or other containerized environments
• AI-assisted testing tools or testing AI-enabled applications
• Supporting automation practices across multiple applications or development teams