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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Automation Developer

💰 $ - $

EngineeringAutomationSoftware Development

🎯 Role Definition

The Automation Developer is responsible for designing, building, and maintaining automated solutions across testing pipelines, business processes, and deployment workflows. This role combines software development skills, automation frameworks, and collaboration with QA, DevOps, and product teams to accelerate delivery, reduce defects, and create repeatable, scalable automation assets. Common responsibilities include automation architecture, script development, CI/CD integration, monitoring, and continuous improvement of automation coverage across web, mobile, API, and backend systems.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • QA Engineer with automation experience
  • Software Engineer / Backend Developer with scripting expertise
  • RPA Developer or Process Automation Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Senior Automation Developer / Lead Automation Engineer
  • Automation Architect / Test Automation Architect
  • DevOps Engineer or Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)
  • Manager of Engineering / QA Manager

Lateral Moves:

  • RPA Solution Architect
  • Performance Test Engineer
  • Release Engineer / CI/CD Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, implement, and maintain robust, reusable automated test suites and automation frameworks (UI, API, integration and end-to-end) using industry-standard tools such as Selenium, Playwright, Appium, Cypress, or similar frameworks to ensure high-quality releases.
  • Develop and maintain automation for continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, integrating test execution, reporting, and quality gates into Jenkins, Azure DevOps, GitLab CI, or CircleCI to enable fast, reliable deployments.
  • Author clean, maintainable code and automation scripts in languages such as Java, Python, C#, or JavaScript/TypeScript to automate regression suites, smoke tests, and acceptance criteria for feature releases.
  • Collaborate with product owners, QA engineers, and developers to translate acceptance criteria and user stories into automated tests that validate functionality, security, and performance across microservices and APIs.
  • Implement API automation for RESTful and SOAP services using tools like Postman, REST-assured, pytest, or similar libraries to validate contract, integration, and data-layer stability.
  • Build and evolve an automation strategy and roadmap that balances new feature automation, technical debt, and regression coverage while measuring ROI and test effectiveness.
  • Design and implement data-driven and keyword-driven test frameworks that support parameterization, test data management, and environment configuration for repeatable execution in CI environments.
  • Create and maintain reusable test libraries, page object models, test scaffolding, and utilities to reduce duplication and accelerate test development.
  • Integrate automated tests with test management, defect tracking, and reporting tools (JIRA, TestRail, Allure, ReportPortal) to provide timely feedback to engineering teams and stakeholders.
  • Troubleshoot intermittent test failures and environment-specific issues by analyzing logs, screenshots, and stack traces; implement flakiness reduction strategies and stable test orchestration.
  • Automate business process workflows and repetitive tasks using RPA platforms (UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism) where appropriate to improve operational efficiency and reduce manual effort.
  • Implement monitoring and alerting for automation runs, results, and infrastructure health; manage build agents, containers, and ephemeral test environments to support parallel execution and scale.
  • Drive quality engineering best practices including shift-left testing, contract testing, containerized test environments, and test data privacy/compliance considerations in automation pipelines.
  • Mentor junior automation engineers and QA engineers in test automation techniques, coding standards, framework design, and problem-solving to grow team capability.
  • Contribute to performance, load, and stress testing initiatives by creating and executing automated performance scripts using JMeter, Gatling, or k6 and integrating results into release decisions.
  • Partner with security engineers to automate security and vulnerability scanning as part of CI/CD (SAST/DAST) and to automate relevant test cases that validate hardening controls and compliance requirements.
  • Manage and optimize test environments, using Docker, Kubernetes, or cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP) to provision isolated, reproducible test infrastructure for automation runs.
  • Implement test parallelization, container orchestration, and distributed test execution to reduce feedback time and speed up pipelines for large test suites.
  • Evaluate, recommend, and adopt new automation tools, frameworks, and practices to keep the organization current and to increase automation return on investment.
  • Work with cross-functional teams to ensure automated regression and release test coverage aligns with product risk profiles, SLAs, and business priorities.
  • Create clear, actionable documentation for automation frameworks, onboarding guides, runbooks, and troubleshooting steps to support team scalability and knowledge transfer.
  • Analyze metrics and KPIs for automation health (coverage, flakiness, run-time, pass/fail trends) and communicate recommendations to stakeholders for continuous improvement.
  • Participate in agile ceremonies, sprint planning, backlog grooming, and retrospective discussions to align automation priorities with sprint goals and delivery timelines.
  • Ensure test automation adheres to accessibility standards, localization testing, and cross-browser/device compatibility requirements where relevant.
  • Maintain version control best practices for automation assets (branching, pull requests, code reviews) and enforce coding standards through peer reviews and static analysis tools.
  • Support regulatory and quality audits by providing evidence of automated test coverage, controls, and traceability between requirements and automation artifacts.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Assist in onboarding new hires to automation tools, CI/CD pipelines, and internal coding standards.
  • Provide occasional on-call support for automation platform incidents and failed nightly runs.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Proficient in at least one scripting or programming language commonly used in automation: Python, Java, C#, or JavaScript/TypeScript.
  • Strong experience building and maintaining test automation frameworks (Selenium WebDriver, Playwright, Cypress, Appium) and applying design patterns like Page Object Model.
  • Hands-on experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins, Azure DevOps, GitLab CI, Bamboo, or CircleCI.
  • API automation expertise using REST-assured, Postman/Newman, pytest, or similar tools; ability to validate contracts and mock services.
  • Knowledge of RPA platforms (UiPath, Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism) for process automation and orchestration where business automation is required.
  • Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies (Docker, Kubernetes) to create reproducible and scalable test environments.
  • Proficiency with version control systems (Git) and branching workflows, code reviews, and pull-request driven development.
  • Familiarity with performance testing tools (JMeter, Gatling, k6) and ability to interpret load test results and recommend mitigations.
  • Understanding of cloud environments and deployment models (AWS, Azure, GCP) and ability to run automation in cloud-based test farms and device clouds.
  • Experience with test reporting and analytics tools (Allure, ReportPortal, TestRail) and ability to generate actionable, stakeholder-ready reports.
  • Knowledge of CI/CD quality gates, SAST/DAST integration, and automated security testing principles.
  • Experience with databases and query languages (SQL, NoSQL) to validate and prepare test data.
  • Familiarity with agile methodologies, sprint-based development, and collaboration with cross-functional teams.
  • Ability to automate browser, mobile, and desktop workflows and manage cross-browser/test-device matrices.

Soft Skills

  • Strong problem-solving and debugging abilities; methodical approach to isolating automation failures and root causes.
  • Excellent communication skills to explain technical automation issues and report status to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Collaborative mindset and ability to work effectively with QA, engineering, product, and operations teams.
  • Attention to detail and commitment to delivering reliable, maintainable automation assets.
  • Proactive learning attitude to evaluate and adopt new tools and improve automation practices.
  • Time management and prioritization skills to balance urgent release needs with longer-term automation investments.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline; or equivalent practical experience with demonstrable automation projects.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field, or professional automation / DevOps certifications.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Information Technology
  • Automation Engineering
  • Data Science / Applied Mathematics (beneficial for test data and analytics)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3 to 7 years of hands-on experience in automation engineering, test automation, or software development with significant automation responsibilities.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years with proven delivery of enterprise-grade automation frameworks, CI/CD integrations, RPA implementations, or large-scale test automation projects; experience mentoring others and driving automation strategy across teams.

  • Preferred certifications: ISTQB, Certified Scrum Developer/Agile, UiPath Advanced Developer, Blue Prism Developer, AWS/Azure certifications, or equivalent vendor certifications that validate automation and cloud competency.

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