AI Augmented QA Engineer

AI Augmented QA Engineer Location: Auckland, Hybrid Department: Engineering | Role Type: Shared Service / Force Multiplier Fixed Term Role - ASAP to 28th May 2027 THE MISSION The AI-Augmented QA Engineer builds and owns our quality infastructure. Unlike traditional QA roles, you don't sit inside a single pod to manually click through features; you serve as a force multiplier across all pods. Your mission is to build the automated frameworks and AI-orchestrated tooling that allow Product Engineers to verify their own work with confidence. This is a "Quality-as-Code" role. In an environment moving at AI-augmented speeds, you are responsible for building the safety nets that catch characteristic AI failures—hallucinated logic, shallow error handling, and compliance gaps—before they ever reach production. You don't gatekeep delivery; you accelerate it by making high-quality shipping the path of least resistance. WHAT YOU WILL DO Infrastructure Design: Build and maintain AI-orchestrated frameworks (Python/Playwright) that are modular and usable by every pod. AI-Generated Strategy: Use AI tools ( Cursor, Claude, and others) to transform feature specs into comprehensive test plans, specifically hunting for obscure edge cases and failure scenarios. Hands-On Testing: Perform manual and exploratory testing where automated coverage doesn’t yet exist. Know where the risks are in the product surface and prioritise accordingly. Stress & Scale: Build load-testing infrastructure to simulate high-throughput scenarios across our translation APIs and verification pipelines. AI Code Verification: Identify where AI-generated code introduces security gaps or hallucinated compliance behaviour, and build automated detection into the shared quality layer. Shared Asset Library: Develop a central repository of test assets that pods can extend and reuse, preventing "reinventing the wheel" across the organization. WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR AI-Augmented Testing AI as a daily tool: You already use AI in your workflow – coding assistants, test generation, prompt engineering. Not curious about AI; already doing it. The Irony of AI: You understand that AI can generate tests that pass without actually covering failure modes. You have the intuition to catch these "false positives." Automated Generation: Experience using AI to generate test plans, edge case scenarios, and automation scripts, coupled with the technical depth to verify their validity. Technical Foundation Testing Fundamentals: You understand test strategy, test design, coverage and risk – not just how to write a test script. Python Proficiency: You can write and maintain test automation, scripts and frameworks in Python. Tooling: Experience with test automation frameworks (Playwright, Selenium, or similar) and CI/CD pipeline integration. Failure Pattern Recognition: Knowledge of where AI-generated code commonly stumbles: security boundaries, data validation, and overconfident logic. Mindset Self Directed: You figure things out, ask good questions, and don’t wait for someone to hand you a process Cross-Team Fluency: This role is shared across engineering pods with different contexts and cadences. You manage that without being managed . Prevention over Detection: You don’t just find bugs; you design systems that prevent them from being written in the first place. Speed + Rigor: You are comfortable working at the intersection of velocity and discipline, understanding that in 2026, you cannot have one without the other. Nice-to-Haves Familiarity with load testing and performance testing tools Exposure to compliance and security testing patterns (GDPR, data handling) Additional languages beyond Python (TypeScript, JavaScript) Background in localisation, language technology, or NLP-adjacent domains Experience in smaller, fast-moving companies where you wear multiple hats WHY THIS ROLE? You won't be stuck in a repetitive manual testing loop. You’ll be building the AI-driven quality engine of a modern tech company. You’ll have a bird’s-eye view of the entire technical landscape, influencing the standards of every pod at Straker If you’re the kind of person who sees AI as a tool to be wielded rather than a threat to be managed – this is the role for you!