QA Automation Engineer

Description:

Clune Tech is a world-leading provider of international taxation, finance, and fulfilment services to clients in over 100 countries ranging from blue-chip financial service companies to individual investors & cross-border workers.

About the role:

The Mid QA Automation Engineer is a key individual contributor responsible for designing, building and maintaining robust automated test solutions using Playwright as the primary automation framework. The role drives automation coverage across web and API layers, leads framework development and continuous improvement, integrates tests into CI/CD pipelines, and acts as a technical reference for automation best practices within the QA team. The Mid-Senior QA Automation Engineer works closely with developers, Business Analysts, Product Owners and Manual QA colleagues, and plays an active role in shaping test strategy, mentoring junior automation engineers, and evolving QA tooling and practices across the organization.

Responsibilities:

Test automation analysis, design & implementation

• Review and analyse requirements, user stories and acceptance criteria to identify test conditions suitable for automation and define appropriate coverage.

• Design, implement and maintain automated functional and regression tests for web, API and other application layers in line with agreed standards and frameworks.

• Create and maintain reusable test components, data builders and utilities to support efficient automated testing.

• Estimate effort for automation tasks and provide input into release planning.

Automated test execution, CI/CD & reporting

• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines so that suites run reliably on every build and before releases.

• Monitor automated test runs, investigate failures and distinguish between product defects, script issues and environmental problems.

• Ensure test results and logs are clear, traceable and accessible, allowing quick identification of root causes.

• Provide regular reporting on automation coverage, pass rates and key quality indicators for assigned areas.

Defect management & quality ownership

• Log defects identified through automated tests in the defect tracking system, with clear steps to reproduce, expected vs actual results and supporting evidence.

• Re-test fixed issues using both automated and targeted manual tests where required and verify that corrections have not introduced regressions.

• Take quality ownership for selected features, modules or flows, ensuring adequate automated and manual coverage across releases.

• Proactively identify gaps in automation and propose additional tests or improvements to existing scripts.

Collaboration & communication

• Work as an active member of the development team, participating in team meetings, planning sessions and reviews as required.

• Collaborate closely with developers to understand technical implementation details, agree on testability and support faster defect resolution.

• Partner with Manual QA colleagues to define the right split between automated and manual testing and to keep regression packs current.

• Escalate significant quality concerns or blockers to the QA Team Leader in a timely, structured way.

Framework, tooling & continuous improvement

• Contribute to the design, extension and refactoring of test automation frameworks to improve reliability, readability and maintainability.

• Promote good engineering practices in test automation (clean code, version control, code review, naming conventions, proper assertions).

• Evaluate and recommend new tools or approaches (for UI, API, performance or other test types) where they can add value.

• Help document standards, guidelines and examples for automation within the QA team and wider engineering organisation.

Compliance & security

• Follow data protection and information security guidelines when working with test data, environments and tools.

• Ensure automated tests and pipelines comply with internal quality standards and agreed procedures.

Requirements:

• Experience in software testing / quality assurance, including focus on test automation.

• Solid understanding of the software development lifecycle (SDLC) and the role of QA within development teams.

• Strong hands-on experience with Playwright as the primary automation framework, including page object models, fixtures, API testing and parallel execution.

• Proficient in JavaScript or TypeScript for automation scripting, with the ability to write clean, maintainable and reusable test code using Playwright.

• Experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines and working with version control systems (e.g. Git).

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills; able to translate requirements into robust automated test scenarios.

• High level of attention to detail and accuracy when implementing tests and analyzing results.

• Experience with defect tracking and test management tools (e.g. Jira plus a test case management tool).

• Ability to write clear, maintainable test code and structured defect reports.

• Excellent written and spoken English.

• Good communication and interpersonal skills; able to work effectively with developers, Business Analysts and other stakeholders.

• Good organizational skills and ability to plan and priorities own work to meet agreed deadlines.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience architecting and scaling Playwright test frameworks across large, multi-team product environments.

• Experience using Playwright’s API testing capabilities alongside REST clients (e.g. Postman) and contract testing approaches.

• Basic understanding of databases and ability to use SQL for test data preparation and verification.

• Familiarity with performance or load testing concepts and tools (e.g. k6, Gatling) and ability to complement Playwright suites with non-functional tests.

• Experience mentoring junior automation engineers and leading automation guild or community of practice sessions.

Benefits:

What’s in it for you?