Staff Automation QA Engineer

Company overview LucidLink is the file streaming platform for large-file workflows. We give teams and tools instant access to data in the cloud, so work starts right away, anywhere. No downloads, no syncing, no VPNs. What began as a faster way to open huge media files is now a platform spanning streaming from existing storage, on-site acceleration, web and mobile access, and a developer layer that connects agents to the filespace, all with zero-knowledge security and enterprise governance built in. More than 4,000 companies — including Adobe, Spotify, Warner Bros, and Paramount — and 100,000 users in over 150 countries stream more than 100 petabytes with LucidLink, and the Television Academy has recognized us with an Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy Award. Founded in 2016 by storage industry veterans, we are headquartered in San Francisco with an engineering office in Sofia, Bulgaria, and remote employees across North America, Europe and Australia. Reasons to join LucidLink: Tackle big challenges: You’ll have the chance to solve complex, high-stakes problems that redefine how teams collaborate globally. By starting with the Media & Entertainment industry and expanding into data-intensive sectors, you’ll gain deep insight into cutting-edge technologies and play a role in shaping the future of global workflows. Values-led culture: Our values don’t just exist on paper—they guide every decision and interaction. You’ll thrive in an environment where integrity, innovation, and empathy are at the core of how we operate, empowering you to grow personally and professionally. Hypergrowth journey: Joining a company with rapid growth means unparalleled opportunities for advancement, learning, and being part of an exciting journey toward unicorn status. You’ll experience the adrenaline of startup speed combined with the satisfaction of building something truly impactful. Immediate impact: At LucidLink, your work will matter—immediately. You’ll be part of a tight-knit team of 230+ builders working at startup speed, where your ideas and actions will create tangible, exponential results that contribute to our collective success. Comprehensive benefits: We believe in investing in our people. With flexible PTO, a competitive salary, stock options, and full health coverage, you’ll feel supported both professionally and personally while enjoying a strong work-life balance. The job At LucidLink, you’ll be a part of a world-class team of engineers, creatives, thinkers, and storytellers, empowering remote teams to connect in new ways to produce high-quality video, audio, media, and design projects. You’ll have the opportunity to learn and advance while working with various applications and technologies on the three major operating systems and regularly confronting complex situations requiring critical thinking and attention to detail. Quality and reliability of a filesystem constitute vastly different problems than ensuring the same virtues of web or regular applications. You will be constantly challenged to think about low-level I/O, networking, operating systems, user application behavior, and interoperability. Mission Your mission will be to lead LucidLink's shift from manual, reactive QA to a strategic, automation-first model. Close the gap in an automation infrastructure that today covers only happy-path scenarios, and provide technical governance across authentication, file systems, SDKs, and back-end infrastructure — the areas most critical to platform reliability. Build the standards, tooling, and (over a 3–5 year horizon, increasingly AI-agent-supported) practices that let LucidLink deploy faster and ship changes to its distributed system with higher confidence. What you'll do (Outcomes in 12–18 months) Move QA from manual, reactive testing to a strategic, automation-first model, with a clear roadmap toward AI-agent-supported testing over the next 3–5 years. Close the gap between today's automation coverage (happy-path only) and the depth needed for confident, frequent releases — platform-wide, across edge cases, failure modes, and cross-platform scenarios. Establish technical governance and testing standards across authentication, file systems, SDKs, and back-end infrastructure. Architect CI/CD-integrated automation at the platform level — reducing flakiness, cutting execution time, giving engineering fast, trustworthy build-health signal. Introduce a small set of trusted automation/quality metrics that drive prioritization and release decisions org-wide. Increase release confidence and reduce late-cycle surprises through stronger risk-based test planning and earlier quality signal. Become the technical leadership point for automation decisions across desktop, mobile, and web, influencing engineering practice without direct authority over every team. Competencies and values Automation-first QA strategy: Defines what quality and automation coverage should look like at LucidLink's current stage; translates that into an executable, platform-wide strategy. Hands-on execution & builder mindset: Drives change by designing, building, and piloting automation frameworks and processes — not by delegating from a distance. Technical depth & systems thinking: Deep enough grounding in authentication, file systems, SDKs, and back-end infrastructure to reason about complex, distributed systems and debug cross-platform failures. Influence without authority: Builds credibility with engineering, product, and architecture; shifts testing culture (shift-left, DoD/DoR) through clarity, data, and trust rather than authority. People development in distributed environments: Coaches and mentors QA and automation engineers embedded across teams, even without full direct-line management. Data-driven problem solving: Uses metrics and evidence to identify quality gaps, prioritize automation investment, and measure impact at the org level. Pragmatic tooling & AI adoption: Evaluates and adopts modern automation and AI-assisted testing tools org-wide where they deliver real, measurable value — without chasing hype. Interview process: Here’s what you can expect when you apply: Initial interview – a chat with our People & Culture team to get to know you and your background. Technical interview – a conversation with some of our engineers to dive into your skills and experience. Take-home task – an assignment to work on in your own time, showcasing your problem-solving approach. Task review – a follow-up interview where you’ll walk us through your solution and thought process. Final interview – a discussion with our VP of Engineering, Engineering Manager, or both, to make sure we’re the right fit for each other. At LucidLink, AI fluency is a core professional competency. As part of our interview process, we'll explore how you currently use AI tools in your work and how you think about using them responsibly.