About the role

Role Summary

This is a hybrid senior QA role — the candidate must be equally strong in manual testing AND automation. Candidates who are purely automation-focused or purely manual will be automatically disqualified. The person must be able to contribute from day one with minimal ramp-up.

Non-Negotiable Technical Requirements

API Testing (Critical — most common rejection reason) The candidate must have deep understanding of REST API architecture, HTTP methods, status codes, request/response structures, and industry best practices — not just "I've used Postman." They must be able to identify when a developer is not following API best practices and argue technical cases with developers confidently. Surface-level API exposure will not pass screening.

UI & Responsiveness Testing Must have hands-on experience testing responsive web applications across different device types and screen sizes — not just desktop. Experience identifying component overlap, layout breaks, and rendering issues on mobile viewports is required.

Test Automation Hands-on experience with Playwright is required — specifically advanced concepts including fixtures, storage state, and scalable framework design. Selenium knowledge is acceptable as supplementary but Playwright must be primary. Experience building and maintaining automation frameworks from scratch, not just writing test cases within an existing framework.

Manual Testing Strong in functional, regression, and exploratory testing. Must be able to design test plans, write comprehensive test cases, and manage test suites in test management tools.

SQL Must be capable of writing and running SQL queries for end-to-end data quality validation.

CI/CD Must understand CI/CD pipelines, monitor test failures, and integrate automated tests into pipelines. Experience with GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or similar tools required.

Experience & Seniority Bar

Minimum 7+ years of QA experience. Seniority is defined by three things equally:

Technical independence — does not need hand-holding; goes looking for answers proactively
Ownership mindset — takes responsibility for product quality, not just assigned test cases
Communication confidence — can speak up in team meetings, sprint ceremonies, and refinement sessions; can push back on developers with well-reasoned technical arguments

Candidates with strong technical skills but weak communication or low confidence will not pass the behavioral round. This is a known rejection pattern — please pre-screen for this explicitly.

Behavioral & Cultural Fit (Round 2 & 3 bar)

The team values curiosity and eagerness to learn above almost everything else. Candidates who are passive, wait to be told what to do, or lack genuine interest in understanding how the system works have historically failed even after passing technical rounds. Candidates must demonstrate:

Curiosity about the product and how the system is built
Confidence to ask questions in meetings with senior stakeholders and C-suite
Ability to work independently within an agile team (Scrum + Kanban)
Personality that fits a collaborative, outspoken team — introverted candidates who won't raise their voice in group settings will struggle

Day-to-Day Responsibilities

Participate in a fully agile process with frequent releases
Create, maintain, and curate test case suites in test management tools and automation repos
Conduct smoke tests post-release and communicate issues clearly
Participate in on-call rotation and follow incident runbooks
Review PRs and provide feedback on code quality
Collaborate closely with developers to validate fixes and raise quality issues proactively
Anticipate production risks and work with the team to mitigate disruptions

Nice to Have

Experience with performance, security, and accessibility testing
White-box testing capability
Experience mentoring junior QA engineers

Pre-Screening Criteria for Vendors

Before submitting any candidate please confirm they can answer the following:

Explain REST API best practices and give an example of a bug you caught because a developer violated one of them
Walk through how you would test a responsive web application across mobile devices — what tools and what are you looking for?
Describe an advanced Playwright scenario you have built — specifically fixtures or storage state management
Give an example of a time you pushed back on a developer or raised a quality concern in a team meeting — what did you say and what happened?

Any candidate who cannot answer these four questions clearly and confidently should not be submitted.