Quality Assurance Architect

The QA Architect owns the vision, strategy, and hands on execution of quality engineering across the Platform, Credential, and Violations portfolios, reporting to the Senior Enterprise Architect. This is an individual contributor role with no direct reports: influence comes from technical credibility and direct partnership rather than organizational authority. You will personally build automation frameworks, write and review test code, and work directly inside a squad when a team needs help, including training engineers, pairing on hard problems, and doing the work directly when that is what moves a team forward fastest.

Responsibilities

Own the enterprise QA vision and long term automation strategy across Platform, Credential, and Violations; Establish the testing pyramid and automation approach spanning unit, integration, contract, end to end, performance, and non functional testing; Extend the quality tooling roadmap to test and validation strategies for asynchronous, event driven, and message based integrations; Personally build and maintain core automation frameworks and shared test libraries; Write and review test code, automation scripts, and test plans alongside squad engineers; Step in directly to pair with engineers, run training sessions, or write initial test suites when a team lacks automation skill or capacity; Perform and guide non functional testing, including load, stress, performance, and basic security testing; Work with QA Leads and Tech Leads to implement the QA strategy in each portfolio; Identify and resolve cross portfolio testing dependencies; Represent QA in the Architecture CoE and track quality metrics such as defect escape rate, automation coverage, test execution time, and change failure rate

Requirements

8+ years in QA, quality engineering, or software engineering; 4+ years focused on test automation strategy and architecture; Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience; Deep, current hands on ability to write production quality automation code; Senior level knowledge of testing processes, principles, and techniques at an ISTQB or equivalent depth; Strong proficiency in QA automation and scripting using current tooling, with Python, pytest, and Playwright strongly preferred; Excellent command of automation best practices, including clean coding and the Test Automation Pyramid; Working knowledge of non functional testing, including load, stress, and endurance testing; Basic security testing informed by OWASP fundamentals; Practical, current experience with SQL, REST and SOAP APIs, CI/CD tooling, and browser and mobile testing tools; Experience designing test and validation strategies for asynchronous, event driven, and message based integrations; Working knowledge of test data management and data quality validation practices for shared or regulated datasets; Experience designing regression and cutover test strategies for live system migrations; Experience setting technical direction across multiple teams without direct command and control authority; Strong written and verbal communication that translates quality strategy for engineers and leadership

Nice to have

Experience establishing a QA or automation function from an earlier or less mature state; ISTQB or ASTQB certification, or a more advanced credential; Experience in mobility, transportation, tolling, parking, or other high volume transaction processing industries; Familiarity with compliance relevant testing considerations such as PCI DSS and data privacy; Experience evaluating third party test automation or quality tooling vendors, including basic build versus buy judgment