Senior QA – Automation Engineer

Skillset: Playwright / Cypress / Selenium, API Automation, Python / C# / Java / TypeScript / JavaScript, SQL, Performance Testing, CI/CD, Git
Experience: 7+ Years | 4+ Years in Test Automation
Requirement: Full-Time
Location: Hyderabad Work from Office

ROLE SUMMARY

We are looking for a Senior QA / Automation Engineer with strong hands-on expertise in API testing, API automation, and core test automation engineering to own solution-level quality across the Paragon platform. The ideal candidate should have proven experience in designing and building automation frameworks from scratch, selecting appropriate tools and technologies, establishing framework architecture, and developing scalable, maintainable, and reusable automation solutions. The role will focus heavily on API and service-level testing, while also contributing to UI, integration, end-to-end, data validation, performance testing, and CI/CD quality gates. The candidate should be comfortable working independently, taking ownership of automation strategy, and serving as the senior quality voice on the delivery team. The successful candidate will work closely with engineering and business stakeholders, including U.S.-based teams, to identify quality risks, improve test coverage, and establish robust automated quality gates.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Automation Framework Development: Design, architect, and build scalable automation frameworks from scratch based on application architecture and testing requirements. Establish framework structure, coding standards, reusable components, configuration management, reporting, logging, test data management, and execution strategies.
• API Testing & Automation: Own API testing strategy covering functional, integration, regression, negative-path, authorization, boundary, contract, and end-to-end scenarios for REST APIs.
• API Automation Framework: Develop and maintain robust API automation using tools and libraries such as Postman/Newman, REST Assured, Requests, RestSharp, Playwright API, or equivalent technologies. Build reusable utilities and libraries to support large-scale API automation.
• API Validation: Validate HTTP methods, status codes, headers, authentication/authorization, request and response payloads, JSON/XML schemas, error contracts, pagination, idempotency, data integrity, and business rules.
• UI Automation: Build and maintain reliable, low-flake automated regression suites using Playwright, Cypress, Selenium WebDriver, or equivalent frameworks, with appropriate reusable page/component objects and utilities.
• Automation Architecture & Design: Evaluate automation requirements, select appropriate tools and frameworks, define automation strategy, and establish coding and framework standards that can be adopted across the QA team.
• Automation from Scratch: Demonstrate the ability to take an application with limited or no existing automation and independently establish the automation framework, project structure, test architecture, reusable components, reporting, CI/CD integration, and initial automated coverage.
• CI/CD Integration: Integrate API and UI automation suites into Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or equivalent CI/CD platforms, enabling automated execution and visible test results.
• Performance Testing: Design and execute load, stress, soak, and spike tests; establish performance baselines and communicate actionable findings.
• Data Validation: Validate database records, transformation logic, data integrity, reconciliation, deduplication, entity matching outcomes, and confidence scoring using SQL and automated data-quality checks.
• Test Strategy & Coverage: Define automation priorities based on risk, business criticality, application architecture, regression requirements, and release timelines.
• Defect Discipline: Identify, troubleshoot, and document defects with clear reproduction steps, technical evidence, root-cause analysis, and appropriate severity/priority.
• Technical Leadership: Participate in requirement refinement, estimation, solution/design discussions, defect triage, code reviews, and release readiness. Mentor other QA engineers on automation practices and framework development.
• Quality Ownership: Proactively identify automation gaps and quality risks, recommend improvements, and provide clear release-readiness recommendations.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

• Experience: 7+ years of experience in software quality engineering, with 4+ years of strong hands-on experience in test automation and automation framework development.
• API Testing: Strong hands-on experience in API testing and API automation, including REST API functional, integration, regression, negative, authorization, boundary, and contract testing.
• API Automation: Strong practical experience with Postman/Newman, REST Assured, Python Requests, RestSharp, Playwright API, or equivalent API automation tools/libraries.
• Automation Framework Development: Proven ability to design and build an automation framework from scratch, including framework architecture, reusable components, utilities, configuration management, test data handling, logging, reporting, parallel execution, and CI/CD integration.
• Core Automation Skills: Strong understanding of automation fundamentals, including Page Object Model/component-based design, data-driven testing, keyword/reusable utilities, parameterization, assertions, synchronization, parallel execution, exception handling, reporting, and maintainable framework architecture.
• Programming: Strong hands-on programming skills in at least one of Python, C#, Java, TypeScript, or JavaScript. Candidate should be capable of writing production-quality automation code and participating confidently in code reviews.
• UI Automation: Strong hands-on experience with Playwright, Cypress, Selenium WebDriver, or equivalent frameworks, including experience reducing automation flakiness.
• SQL: Good working knowledge of SQL, including joins, aggregates, subqueries, reconciliation queries, and database validation.
• CI/CD: Experience integrating automated test suites into Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or equivalent CI/CD platforms.
• Version Control: Strong Git proficiency, including branching strategies, pull requests, merge/rebase practices, and code reviews.
• Performance Testing: Hands-on experience with k6, JMeter, Gatling, Locust, Azure Load Testing, or equivalent tools.
• Test Design: Strong understanding of test design techniques and the ability to identify high-value automation scenarios and appropriate levels of testing.
• Debugging & Troubleshooting: Strong analytical and debugging skills with the ability to investigate failures across APIs, services, UI, databases, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Ways of Working: Experience working as a senior QA/automation engineer within an Agile development environment and participating in refinement, estimation, design discussions, and defect triage.
• Communication: Strong written and spoken English with the ability to independently communicate technical issues, risks, and recommendations with U.S.-based engineering and business stakeholders.
• Quality Ownership: Demonstrated ability to independently own automation deliverables, identify quality gaps, and provide clear recommendations on release readiness