Testing & Automation Engineer

Testing & Automation Engineer 📍 Location: Shelton, Connecticut, United States (Hybrid) 🏢 Industry: Restaurants 💼 Work Setting: Hybrid Are you passionate about delivering high-quality software, building scalable test automation frameworks, and driving continuous quality across modern application environments? We are seeking a skilled Testing & Automation Engineer to design, develop, and maintain automated testing solutions that ensure the reliability, performance, and quality of software applications and services. This role focuses on expanding test coverage, improving delivery efficiency, and embedding quality throughout the software development lifecycle through automation, performance testing, and modern quality engineering practices. Key Responsibilities Test Automation & Quality Engineering Design, develop, and maintain automated test suites for web applications, APIs, backend services, and integrated systems. Execute functional, integration, regression, and end-to-end testing across multiple platforms and environments. Develop scalable and reusable automation frameworks that improve testing efficiency and coverage. Continuously identify opportunities to increase automation and reduce manual testing efforts. Establish and maintain quality standards throughout the software development lifecycle. Agile Collaboration & Requirements Validation Collaborate with Product Owners, Business Analysts, Developers, and DevOps teams to define test strategies, acceptance criteria, and quality requirements. Participate in Agile ceremonies including sprint planning, backlog refinement, reviews, and retrospectives. Review business and technical requirements to ensure testability and quality coverage. Provide early feedback on potential risks and quality concerns during development. CI/CD & Continuous Testing Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines to support continuous integration and continuous delivery practices. Support automated quality gates and deployment validation processes. Improve testing workflows through automation, reporting, and monitoring capabilities. Work closely with DevOps teams to ensure stable and reliable testing environments. Defect Management & Root Cause Analysis Identify, document, prioritize, and track software defects through resolution. Perform root cause analysis to understand quality issues and prevent recurrence. Partner with engineering teams to troubleshoot and resolve application defects. Validate bug fixes and ensure regression risks are adequately addressed. Performance & Reliability Testing Design and execute performance, load, stress, scalability, and endurance testing activities. Analyze system behavior under varying workloads and recommend performance improvements. Identify bottlenecks affecting application responsiveness, throughput, and stability. Establish performance benchmarks and quality metrics for critical systems. AI-Assisted Testing & Innovation Leverage AI-powered testing tools to improve testing effectiveness and efficiency. Utilize AI-assisted capabilities for test case generation, test data creation, risk identification, and coverage analysis. Evaluate emerging testing technologies and recommend innovative quality engineering practices. Contribute to the adoption of intelligent automation approaches across testing processes. Documentation & Continuous Improvement Maintain test plans, test cases, automation documentation, and testing standards. Contribute to quality governance, testing best practices, and process improvement initiatives. Share knowledge and mentor team members on automation frameworks and quality engineering techniques. Promote a quality-first culture across development and delivery teams. Required Qualifications Education Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Information Technology, or a related field preferred. Equivalent practical experience will also be considered. Experience 3 to 6 years of experience in Software Testing, Automation Engineering, Quality Assurance, or Quality Engineering roles. Experience developing and maintaining automated testing solutions in Agile environments. Proven experience supporting software quality initiatives across multiple applications and platforms. Experience working with development and DevOps teams throughout the software delivery lifecycle. Technical Skills Test Automation Test Automation Framework Development UI Test Automation API Testing Backend Testing Regression Testing End-to-End Testing Functional and Integration Testing Automation Tools Experience with one or more automation technologies such as: Selenium Cypress Playwright REST Assured Postman Similar modern testing frameworks Performance Testing Experience using performance engineering tools including: JMeter Gatling k6 Locust Equivalent performance testing platforms Development & Scripting Working knowledge of: Java JavaScript Python C# Other programming or scripting languages used for automation APIs & DevOps REST APIs Service-Oriented Architectures API Validation and Testing CI/CD Pipelines Continuous Testing Practices Version Control Systems AI-Enabled Testing AI-Assisted Test Automation Automated Test Generation Intelligent Test Data Creation AI-Based Defect Detection Test Coverage Optimization Core Competencies Strong analytical and problem-solving skills Attention to detail and commitment to quality Quality engineering mindset Root cause analysis capabilities Effective collaboration and communication Agile development experience Continuous improvement mindset Performance optimization awareness Time management and prioritization skills