QA Automation Engineer

Job Description This is a remote position. A note on applications — please read before applying We use AI tools heavily in our day-to-day engineering, and we expect you to as well. A résumé is different. It is the one artifact where we want your actual voice, your real judgment, and specifics only you can supply. We do not review AI-generated résumé summaries or profiles. They are generic, interchangeable, and tell us nothing about the person behind them. Applications with an obviously AI-written summary will be rejected outright, without further review. Write it yourself. Role Overview We are hiring a QA Automation Engineer to establish, own, and lead the automated testing practice across our products. This is a foundational, high-autonomy leadership role for someone who can define a quality strategy from the ground up, standardize tooling, build the workflows, mentor engineers on testability, and operationalize release readiness with minimal supervision. There is no dedicated QA function today — you will build it. This is not a feature-development role and it is not a manual ticket-queue role. You should be QA-first, but technical enough to reason about modern front-end apps and APIs, diagnose failures, and partner with engineers to drive fixes. You will decide what needs testing, prioritize the highest-risk user journeys, and continuously raise the quality bar across the SDLC. You will work directly with engineering leadership and act as the quality authority for the team. Key Responsibilities Own the end-to-end QA strategy — test pyramid, coverage targets, release gates, and ownership expectations — across our web applications, spanning modern JavaScript / TypeScript apps and existing WordPress sites. Build and lead automated test suites: E2E / UI automation using Playwright (or a compatible approach). Integration / API checks for critical workflows. Integrate testing into our CI/CD pipeline: PR gating with fast smoke checks, scheduled regression, and release-branch validation. Reporting and artifacts (screenshots, traces, videos, logs) and flake mitigation. Establish the test data and environment strategy — fixtures, seeding, mocks vs. real services, stable test accounts, parallelization. Stand up performance / load testing (k6 / Artillery / JMeter), set baselines, and partner with engineering on bottlenecks across frontend, API, database, and infrastructure. Define and evangelize the quality-ownership model across dynamic engineering pods, including the QA-buddy pattern, and coach developers on writing testable code. Apply automation-first thinking to reduce manual overhead — test triggers, reporting, defect routing, and release-readiness signals; build/maintain workflow automations (n8n or equivalent). Perform targeted manual / exploratory testing for UX validation and edge cases; document risk and go / no-go recommendations. Track the quality metrics that matter: pass rate, runtime, flake rate, defect escape rate, and regression effectiveness. Requirements Required Qualifications 5+ years of professional QA / test automation experience for modern web applications, including demonstrated ownership or lead-level scope. Strong Playwright experience (or equivalent E2E framework). Proficiency in JavaScript / TypeScript sufficient to build and maintain automation frameworks, helpers, fixtures, and CI integrations. Strong front-end understanding: browser behavior, DOM / network debugging, auth / session flows, caching, and reliable selector strategies. Working knowledge of back-end concepts: REST APIs, request / response debugging, and database literacy for test setup and validation. Experience with API testing (Postman / Swagger plus code-driven checks). Experience with CI/CD and Git-based workflows (e.g., GitHub Actions). Demonstrated ability to operate independently — define priorities, build systems, and drive outcomes without a pre-defined backlog. Strong written communication and the ability to drive clarity in ambiguous environments. Must reside in the U.S. and be authorized to work without sponsorship. Preferred Qualifications Experience with monorepo tooling and affected-build workflows (e.g., Nx). Experience designing QA processes for teams with evolving CI/CD maturity. Performance / load testing experience and the ability to translate traffic patterns into infrastructure impact. Familiarity with Docker and containerized test execution. Exposure to Kubernetes and major cloud platforms (e.g., GCP, AWS) from a testing / observability perspective. Workflow automation experience (n8n, Zapier, Make, custom Node-based automations). Observability familiarity (logs / metrics / traces; Grafana / Prometheus / Cloud Monitoring). Practical experience using AI-assisted tools to improve QA efficiency (failure analysis, test maintenance, release reporting), with sound judgment on privacy and security. What Success Looks Like (First 60–90 Days) A documented QA strategy: what we test, how we test it, and what blocks a release. A stable E2E testing framework with a fast PR smoke suite, a scheduled regression suite, and release-branch validation supporting go / no-go decisions. Consistent artifacts and diagnostics in CI (traces, screenshots, logs) enabling fast triage. A workable test data / environment approach that reduces flakiness and speeds execution. Initial performance baselines for core flows and a plan for ongoing scalability testing. One or more automation workflows that materially reduce QA operational load. Benefits Compensation & Benefits Remote — work from anywhere in the U.S. Unlimited PTO — performance-based flexibility 401(k) with employer matching Comprehensive healthcare — medical, dental, and vision Paid professional development About Dealer Alchemist Dealer Alchemist is a digital advertising agency specializing in the automotive industry. We build and operate the platforms that power dealer websites and advertising campaigns at scale, combining deep domain expertise with modern engineering practices.