Lead QA Engineer

Lead QA Engineer – Hands-on Automation

Location: Irvine, CA – Hybrid (3 days onsite/week)
Duration: 12+ Months / Long-Term

Type: W2 Contract – Open to candidates authorized to work in the U.S.

Job Summary:

Our direct client, a leading American distributor of IT products and services, is seeking a Lead QA Engineer with strong hands-on automation expertise to lead QA automation initiatives, design enterprise test frameworks, and drive quality across Agile delivery teams.

Mandatory Skills:

• Beagle Test – Must Have
• Hands-on Java/Python scripting – Must Have
• Selenium / Playwright – Must Have
• API Automation – Must Have (REST Assured/Postman/SOAP UI)
• Test Automation Architecture & Framework Design – Must Have
• CI/CD & DevOps – Must Have (Jenkins, Maven/Gradle, Docker)
• Agile QA / Scrum & Shift-Left Testing – Must Have

Key Requirements:

• 8+ years of QA and Test Automation experience.
• 2+ years leading QA teams or driving QA initiatives.
• Strong experience designing and implementing enterprise automation frameworks for web, API, backend, SOA, and ETL applications.
• Experience with BDD/TDD, Cucumber, TestNG, and scalable automation frameworks.
• Strong hands-on programming experience with Java/Python; C#, Groovy is a plus.
• Experience with AWS/Azure, Kubernetes, Grafana, Kibana, and Elasticsearch.
• Strong experience with defect triage, release readiness, quality gates, and production issue analysis.
• Ability to lead automation strategy, code reviews, mentoring, and cross-functional collaboration with QA, Development, Product, and Production teams.
• Experience driving automation maturity, CI/CD, release automation, test infrastructure, and continuous improvement.