Below is an enhanced client-aligned JD for QE Automation L3 (5–8 years). I’ve consolidated the existing responsibilities with the new expectations, while making Playwright, TypeScript/Java, API automation, Git, CI/CD, and customer-centric quality engineering prominent.

Job Description – QE Automation L3

Position: QE Automation L3 / Full Stack Quality Engineer
Experience: 5–8 Years
Role Type: Quality Engineering / Test Automation
Primary Focus: UI Automation, API Automation, Functional Testing, Quality Engineering

Role Overview

We are looking for a Full Stack Quality Engineer with strong hands-on experience in modern test automation and a customer-focused quality mindset.

The ideal candidate should have strong expertise in Playwright-based UI automation, API automation, automation framework development, and modern engineering practices. The candidate should be capable of working across UI, API, functional, and technical testing and should contribute beyond test execution by driving defect prevention, automation efficiency, quality strategy, and overall product confidence.

The candidate should demonstrate strong problem-solving skills and the ability to understand end-to-end business flows and real customer journeys, rather than limiting testing to written requirements or acceptance criteria.

Key Roles & Responsibilities

• Design, develop, maintain, and execute reliable, reusable, scalable, and maintainable automation solutions.

• Build and enhance automation frameworks and test harnesses using Playwright, with preference for TypeScript or Java.

• Develop comprehensive UI automation covering critical customer journeys, functional scenarios, regression suites, and end-to-end workflows.

• Design and implement API automation for REST and other service-based interfaces.

• Develop and maintain automation solutions for Web, APIs/Services, and Database testing requirements.

• Create clean, modular, reusable, and maintainable automation code following software engineering best practices.

• Integrate automated tests with CI/CD pipelines and support automated execution as part of the software delivery lifecycle.

• Analyze automation failures, troubleshoot issues, and distinguish between automation defects and genuine product defects.

• Design test plans, test scenarios, and test cases based on functional requirements, technical specifications, architecture, and business workflows.

• Participate in requirements, architecture, and design reviews, providing inputs from a Quality Engineering and testability perspective.

• Work closely with Developers, Product Owners, Architects, DevOps, and other stakeholders to ensure quality is built into the product throughout the SDLC.

• Participate actively in functional, system, integration, regression, and end-to-end testing activities.

• Review defects, identify root causes, and work with development teams to ensure timely resolution.

• Analyze production issues and convert production learnings into improved test coverage, automation, and defect-prevention strategies.

• Identify opportunities to improve test automation efficiency, coverage, maintainability, and execution time.

• Contribute to quality strategy, risk assessment, estimation, and release readiness.

• Review automation code and testing deliverables from team members and ensure adherence to defined QE standards and best practices.

• Provide technical guidance and support to junior QE engineers.

• Participate in Agile ceremonies, sprint planning, backlog refinement, retrospectives, and technical discussions.

• Act as a Quality Engineering advocate within the team and promote shift-left and continuous quality practices.

• Capture and analyze QE metrics to provide insights into automation coverage, quality trends, defects, and overall product confidence.

Mandatory Technical Skills

Playwright – Mandatory

• Strong hands-on experience with Playwright is mandatory.

• Strong preference for candidates with Playwright + TypeScript experience.

• Strong understanding of Playwright architecture, locators, assertions, fixtures, hooks, parallel execution, reporting, and debugging.

• Experience designing and maintaining scalable Playwright automation frameworks.

• Ability to implement reusable automation components and utilities.

Programming

Candidates should demonstrate strong programming and automation skills in one of the following:

• Playwright + TypeScript / Java – Strong preference

• Playwright + Python – Acceptable

Preferred Skill Level:

• Playwright + TypeScript/Java: 10/10

• Playwright + Python: 8/10

TypeScript experience should receive preference as it aligns with our current automation direction.

API Automation

Strong experience in:

• REST API automation

• API validation and functional testing

• Request/response validation

• Authentication and authorization scenarios

• Negative and boundary testing

• API integration testing

• Basic understanding of contract testing

Experience with SOAP services is an advantage.

Git & Version Control – Mandatory

• Strong hands-on experience with Git and distributed version control systems.

• Expected proficiency: 10/10

• Experience with branching, merging, pull requests, code reviews, conflict resolution, and maintaining automation code in shared repositories.

CI/CD

• Experience integrating automated tests with CI/CD pipelines.

• Understanding of automated test execution as part of build and deployment pipelines.

• Experience analyzing failures from pipeline executions and troubleshooting automation issues.

Security Testing

The candidate should have a basic-to-good understanding of application security testing, including:

• Basic understanding of OWASP Top 10

• Common web application security vulnerabilities

• Security considerations during API and UI testing

• Understanding how security risks can impact quality and customer experience

Deep security expertise is not mandatory, but the candidate should be able to incorporate basic security considerations into testing.

Performance Testing – Good to Have

Performance testing is a good-to-have, not a mandatory requirement.

Candidates with exposure to the following will be preferred:

• Performance testing concepts and metrics

• Lighthouse

• Sitespeed

• k6

• Basic understanding of load, response time, throughput, and performance bottlenecks

Cloud & Observability – Good to Have

• Basic knowledge of AWS or other cloud platforms.

• Understanding of testing applications deployed in cloud environments.

• Exposure to Splunk or similar observability/logging tools for:

  • Log analysis

  • Debugging

  • Production issue investigation

  • Correlating application failures with system behaviour

Customer-Centric Quality Engineering

A strong customer-centric testing mindset is an important expectation for this role.

The candidate should demonstrate the ability to:

• Validate real customer journeys, rather than testing only individual requirements.

• Understand end-to-end business processes and user behaviour.

• Think beyond written acceptance criteria and identify real-world scenarios.

• Identify potential defects before they reach customers.

• Think about defect prevention rather than only defect detection.

• Analyze production issues and translate learnings into improved test coverage.

• Identify edge cases, negative scenarios, usability concerns, and integration risks.

• Ask questions such as:

  • How will the customer use this feature?

  • What could go wrong in the real world?

  • What happens if the customer performs an unexpected action?

  • What would be the business impact if this fails?

The candidate should be able to connect technical quality with business impact and customer experience.

Quality Engineering & Agile Practices

• Strong understanding of QA/QE methodologies and software testing life cycle.

• Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments.

• Understanding of shift-left testing and continuous quality.

• Experience with test planning, execution, defect management, and test closure.

• Understanding of risk-based testing and quality assessment.

• Experience with test data management.

• Experience working with defect tracking and change management tools.

• Exposure to distributed systems, microservices, containers, and cloud-native applications is preferred.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related discipline preferred.

• 5–8 years of relevant Quality Engineering / Test Automation experience.

• Strong hands-on experience in automation development, preferably using Playwright.

• Experience working across the complete testing lifecycle, from requirement analysis through release and production validation.

Preferred Experience

Candidates with the following combination will be strongly preferred:

Playwright + TypeScript + API Automation + Git + CI/CD + Customer-Centric Testing

Additional exposure to AWS, Splunk, OWASP, Performance Testing, Lighthouse, Sitespeed, or k6 will be an advantage.

Behavioral & Professional Skills

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.

• Excellent debugging and troubleshooting capabilities.

• Strong communication and interpersonal skills.

• Ability to work effectively with distributed and cross-functional teams.

• Strong ownership and accountability.

• Ability to mentor and guide junior team members.

• Passion for continuous learning and adopting modern QE practices.

• Ability to work independently while collaborating effectively with Developers, Product, Architecture, and DevOps teams.

• High standards of confidentiality, integrity, and professionalism.

Key Success Expectations

The successful candidate will be expected to:

• Increase automation coverage and reliability.

• Build scalable and maintainable automation solutions.

• Improve overall regression efficiency.

• Identify defects early and contribute to defect prevention.

• Improve confidence in releases through effective automation and risk-based testing.

• Strengthen end-to-end customer journey coverage.

• Contribute to continuous improvement of the team's Quality Engineering maturity.

• Demonstrate ownership of quality from requirement through production.

Ideal Candidate Profile

5–8 years | Strong Automation Engineer | Playwright Mandatory | TypeScript Preferred | API Automation | Git | CI/CD | Customer-Centric QE Mindset

The ideal candidate is not just a test executor, but a Quality Engineer who can build automation, understand the product, identify risks, prevent defects, and improve overall customer confidence in the software.