We’re looking for a QA Automation Lead who enjoys owning product quality end-to-end and building a full testing platform, not just browser automation.

You’ll lead quality engineering across frontend, backend, APIs and integrations: test strategy, automation frameworks, CI gates and release confidence. This role is for someone who wants to do more than write UI scripts or file bugs after the fact. You’ll design the quality system across every layer, raise engineering standards, and have real ownership over how we know a release is safe.

What you’ll do ?️

- Own quality strategy from risk assessment through automation, CI enforcement and release readiness.
- Design a layered test strategy across unit, component, API, contract, integration, smoke, sanity, regression and end-to-end testing, plus accessibility, performance and visual checks where valuable.
- Build and scale reliable automation for UI, API and service layers (Playwright, API frameworks, unit/component runners).
- Decide which layer owns which risk: keep E2E thin and push most coverage down to unit, API and contract tests.
- Set up CI/CD quality gates: PR checks, post-deploy smoke, nightly regression, and a clear process for fixing flaky tests.
- Own test data, environments, fixtures and mocks so automation is reproducible from local to staging.
- Partner with product and engineering on acceptance criteria, edge cases and risk-based test plans before features ship.
- Drive release confidence with smoke, sanity, E2E and regression signals that engineers trust for go/no-go decisions.
- Reduce flakiness ruthlessly and keep CI green.
- Track meaningful quality metrics (escape rate, flake rate, suite runtime, critical-path coverage), not vanity dashboards.
- Join architecture and design reviews to flag testability, failure modes and contract boundaries early.
- Mentor QA and engineers on testable code and shared ownership of quality, and help hire and grow the QA/SDET team.





What we’re looking for ?

- 5+ years in QA automation or SDET roles, including leading or owning an automation or quality platform.
- Hands-on experience across multiple test types, not only browser E2E.
- Strong grasp of the test pyramid and when E2E is the wrong tool.
- A track record of making flaky suites reliable and keeping CI trustworthy.
- Solid debugging skills across UI, network, APIs, services, auth, data and environments.
- Good understanding of web and backend architecture: REST APIs, auth/sessions, async jobs and service boundaries.
- Ability to risk-rank what to test, at which layer, and what can wait.
- Clear written communication: bug reports, test plans and failure analysis engineers can act on.
- Experience mentoring others and raising quality standards across engineering.
- Comfort with ambiguity, and an ownership mindset that chases failures to root cause.

Nice to have ✨

- Deep Playwright experience (fixtures, tracing, parallelization, auth setups)
- Unit/component testing: Vitest, Jest, React Testing Library, pytest, JUnit
- API testing: Postman/Newman, REST Assured, Supertest, k6
- Contract testing: Pact, OpenAPI/JSON Schema validation
- Integration testing against PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka or similar
- Visual regression, accessibility and performance testing
- CI/CD with GitHub Actions or GitLab CI, Docker and ephemeral test environments
- Reporting with Allure, Playwright or JUnit reports
- TypeScript, JavaScript, Python or Go for automation frameworks




- Familiarity with React/Next.js frontends and REST/event-driven backends
- Testing complex B2B SaaS workflows (multi-tenant, roles/permissions, long-running jobs)
- Security-minded testing (authorization gaps, IDOR, secrets in logs)
- Experience at an early-stage or high-growth startup

What we value ?

- Quality ownership over QA handoffs: we fix the root cause and prevent the class of failure.
- Full-stack quality over browser-only automation: E2E is one tool, not the strategy.
- Signal over suite size: fifty reliable tests beat a thousand flaky ones.
- Shift-left over late discovery: the cheapest bug is the one that never ships.
- Risk-based testing over exhaustive theater: protect critical journeys, push the rest down the pyramid.
- Determinism over “just rerun it”: flaky tests are defects, and we fix them.
- Release confidence over test count: the goal is shipping valuable software safely.

This is a high-ownership leadership role with real influence over release quality, automation platforms and engineering culture.

Probably skip ?

- You want a manual-only or browser-only automation role with no interest in API, unit or contract testing.
- You measure success by test cases written rather than bugs prevented and CI trust.
- You accept flaky tests as normal and tell people to “just rerun.”
- You only test happy paths and ignore auth, permissions, edge cases and failure modes.
- You’re uncomfortable reading logs, network traces, API responses or code.
- You want to be a gatekeeper who blocks releases without helping fix quality.
- You rely on AI-generated selectors and scripts without understanding why they flake.
- You’re uncomfortable with ambiguity, changing priorities or early-stage startup constraints.

How to apply? ??‍?

Send your resume and a short note on why you’re a great fit to [email protected] with the subject line “QA Automation Lead – [Your Name]”

📌 QA Automation Lead (India)
🏢 Phinite.ai
📍 India