Senior QA Engineer - W2 - Only locals to NJ/NY

Responsibilities:
Participate in sprint planning, backlog grooming and stand-ups to understand upcoming features, acceptance criteria and risks.
Define the test strategy, test objectives and scope for features in the product.
Design, develop and execute test cases (manual and automated) that cover UI, API, integration and system behavior.
Build and maintain automation suites using tools such as Selenium (or other UI automation frameworks), API test tools, BDD frameworks (e.g., Cucumber).
Execute functional, regression, integration, system, performance and usability tests.
Work with DevOps/CI pipelines (e.g., Jenkins) to integrate automation and ensure build quality.
Collaborate with developers to locate root causes, reproduce issues, provide detailed bug reports (with steps to reproduce, logs, screen captures, data), and verify fixes.
Advocate for quality by identifying gaps in test coverage, recommending improvements in the process, toolchain or product design.
Generate and present metrics on test coverage, defect trends, automation execution, and quality status to stakeholders.
Champion best practices around QA in the team (e.g., shift-left testing, pair testing, automation early in sprint).
Stay current with new testing tools, frameworks or techniques, and coach/mentor junior QA engineers as needed.

Required Skills & Qualifications
Ideally automation testing with playwright experience.
Several years of professional QA/test engineering experience in a software development environment (UI API integration testing).
Strong experience with automation frameworks (e.g., Selenium WebDriver) and test script development (languages such as Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, Python).
Experience with BDD frameworks (Cucumber, SpecFlow) and writing feature/scenario files.
Experience in API testing (Postman, REST/SOAP services) and backend testing (databases, SQL).
Familiarity with CI/CD tools (e.g., Jenkins) and integrating automation into the build pipeline.
Strong analytical and problem‐solving skills; ability to communicate with both technical and non‐technical stakeholders.
Comfortable working in an Agile/Scrum environment — dynamic, ambiguous requirements, fast pace.

Desired Skills:
Experience with modern UI frameworks (e.g., React, Angular) or mobile testing frameworks.
Experience working on SaaS/cloud-based HR / HCM products.
Experience mentoring other QA engineers, contributing to team process improvement
Familiarity with performance / load testing (JMeter, etc.) or accessibility testing (WCAG)