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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for QA Automation Developer

💰 $80,000 - $120,000

TechnologyQuality AssuranceAutomation

🎯 Role Definition

The QA Automation Developer is a specialist who ensures the quality, reliability and performance of software systems by designing, building and maintaining automated test frameworks and working within DevOps and Agile teams. This role focuses on end-to-end quality from requirement analysis, scripting, execution, defect tracking through to production monitoring. As an Automation QA professional you will collaborate closely with developers, product managers, QA leads and operations to embed automation throughout the lifecycle, shift testing left, increase test coverage and accelerate delivery without compromising quality.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Manual QA Tester with scripting exposure
  • Software Developer focused on test automation (SDET)
  • QA Engineer or Test Analyst with automation interest

Advancement To:

  • Senior QA Automation Developer / Lead Automation Engineer
  • QA Automation Architect or SDET Lead
  • Director of QA/Automation or Head of Quality Engineering

Lateral Moves:

  • DevOps Engineer specialized in test automation pipelines
  • Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)
  • Performance & Reliability Engineer

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  1. Review and analyse system specifications, functional requirements and design documents to define testability, identify automation candidate areas and craft automation strategy.
  2. Design, develop, maintain and enhance automated test frameworks and test scripts (UI, API, service layer, data validation) using tools such as Selenium, Cypress, Robot, Playwright.
  3. Develop, execute and maintain automated regression, integration, smoke and performance test suites to ensure product stability across releases.
  4. Integrate automated testing into continuous integration / continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, ensure automated tests run reliably on build/deployment events and provide fast feedback.
  5. Define and enforce automation standards, guidelines, test strategy, metrics (coverage, pass rate, defect density) and best practices to elevate team maturity.
  6. Collaborate with developers, QA leads, product managers and DevOps teams to identify automation opportunities, review acceptance criteria and ensure testable design.
  7. Create and manage test data, test environments, test harnesses and test stubs/mocks to support robust automation across different platforms and layers.
  8. Monitor, analyse and report on automation test execution results, track defects, manage defect resolution, provide insights into quality trends and test coverage gaps.
  9. Perform backend database validation, data integrity checks and validation of stored procedures, jobs, triggers in SQL/NoSQL environments to support automation.
  10. Ensure automation covers web, mobile and API test cases, supports cross-browser and cross-device compatibility and addresses functional and non-functional testing requirements.
  11. Troubleshoot and debug automation scripts, infrastructure failures, flaky tests and collaborate with engineering to resolve root causes and improve test reliability.
  12. Mentor junior automation developers, conduct code reviews of automation scripts, share knowledge on test automation framework design and promote continuous improvement.
  13. Evaluate and adopt emerging automation technologies, tools and frameworks (e.g., AI-powered testing, cloud test environments) to improve test efficiency and coverage.
  14. Manage and maintain automation tools and infrastructure (test labs, virtual machines, containers, cloud test environments), ensure high availability of the automation system.
  15. Participate actively in agile ceremonies (sprint planning, daily stand-ups, backlog grooming, retrospectives) to ensure automation aligns with sprint goals and ensures readiness.
  16. Balance manual and automated testing activities: identify test cases suitable for automation, plan accordingly and optimise the automation effort.
  17. Collaborate with release management teams to execute test readiness, support regression/automated test runs during releases, assist in deployment verification and roll-back planning.
  18. Maintain comprehensive documentation of automation architecture, test plans, test scripts, metrics dashboards, run books and supplier/vendor test interfaces.
  19. Drive process improvements in the testing lifecycle: analyze automation gaps, propose reuse of libraries, reduce test cycle time and improve time-to-market.
  20. Ensure test automation is aligned with security, accessibility, performance and scalability testing requirements, and collaborate with specialized teams (security, performance, accessibility).
  21. Support production monitoring of automated tests, assist in triage of production defects, and maintain regression suites to catch side-effects post-deployment.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc quality or data requests, exploratory data analysis of test results, metrics and coverage reporting.
  • Contribute to the organisation’s testing strategy and roadmap, advising on automation investment, tooling selection and best practices.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate quality needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the automation and QA team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Proficiency in automation scripting and development using languages such as Java, C#, Python or JavaScript/TypeScript.
  • Strong experience with automation frameworks and tools (Selenium WebDriver, Cypress, Playwright, TestNG, JUnit).
  • Experience with API testing tools and web services (REST, SOAP, Postman, JMeter) and microservices validation.
  • Competence in database testing and scripting (SQL, PL/SQL, T-SQL), data validation and backend automation.
  • Experience integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps).
  • Knowledge of version control systems (Git, SVN, TFS) and branching/merging strategies for test code.
  • Familiarity with cloud environments and containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes) for test infrastructure and scalability.
  • Understanding of web browsers, mobile platforms, test labs, cross-browser/device testing and performance/load automation.
  • Strong analytical skills: test coverage analysis, defect analysis, metrics dashboards and quality reporting.
  • Excellent documentation skills: writing test plans, framework design docs, run-books and automation best-practice guides.

Soft Skills

  • Analytical thinker and problem solver: able to debug complex automation failures and propose sustainable solutions.
  • Excellent communication skills: able to articulate automation strategy, results, metrics and collaborate cross-functionally with non-technical stakeholders.
  • Team-oriented and mentoring mindset: able to guide junior team members, conduct peer reviews and promote team growth.
  • Adaptability and continuous learning: able to stay ahead of evolving automation tools, frameworks, methodologies and industry trends.
  • Ownership and accountability: responsible for delivering automation coverage, maintaining quality and raising issues proactively.
  • Time management and prioritisation: able to juggle multiple test suites, release deadlines and sprint commitments.
  • Collaboration and stakeholder management: works effectively with product, development, QA, operations, and business teams.
  • Detail-oriented and quality-driven: maintain high standards of deliverables, test scripts, framework maintenance and reporting.
  • Strategic thinking: align automation efforts with business objectives, ROI, time-to-market and cost efficiencies.
  • Resilience under pressure: able to support production issues, on-call or rapid fixes, and maintain composure in fast-paced release environments.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology or a related technical discipline.

Preferred Education:

  • Master’s degree or professional certification in Software Testing, Automation Engineering, DevOps or related fields.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Information Technology
  • Quality Assurance / Automation Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3-5 years of experience in test automation development and execution with proven scripting, framework building and testing experience.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years of experience in QA automation, including leading automation initiatives, integrating tests into CI/CD pipelines, and mentoring other automation engineers.
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