Principal Software Test Engineer

Description ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES The essential functions include, but are not limited to the following: Automation & Engineering (Core IC Work – 50%) Help Develop and maintain scalable and reusable test automation frameworks for Web, API, and Thick Client applications. Build and enhance automation solutions to improve test coverage, reliability, and execution efficiency. Ensure CI/CD readiness, enabling seamless integration of automated tests into pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions). Contribute to code reviews and continuous improvement of automation assets. Manual Testing (Core IC Work – 50%) Design, execute, and maintain comprehensive manual test plans, test cases, and test suites for Web, API, and Thick Client applications. Perform functional, regression, exploratory, and integration testing to ensure product quality and coverage. Collaborate with development and product teams on acceptance criteria, edge cases, and defect validation. Identify, document, and track defects with clear reproduction steps and expected versus actual results. Driving Automation Excellence Help drive adoption of automation frameworks and best practices across teams within the Business Unit. Collaborate with teams to identify automation opportunities and improve overall test strategy. Advocate for shift-left testing and early quality validation. Performance & Quality Engineering Design and execute performance and load testing using JMeter. Analyse system performance, identify bottlenecks, and provide recommendations for optimization. Mentorship & Collaboration Mentor and support QA engineers in test automation concepts, tools, scripting, and best practices — serving as a senior technical resource and go-to person for automation guidance within the team. Provide technical guidance without direct people management responsibilities. Collaborate with product, development, and DevOps teams to ensure alignment on quality goals. Contribute to knowledge sharing and capability building within the team. Operational Excellence Participate in planning, estimation, and requirement analysis. Define and contribute to quality metrics and automation effectiveness tracking. Troubleshoot complex issues across application, database, and infrastructure layers. MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS (KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES) Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or equivalent. 8-12 years of experience in software testing with balanced expertise across both manual and automation testing. Proven experience as a senior individual contributor in quality engineering/automation. Solid hands-on experience in test automation with the ability to guide and mentor team members on automation practices, tool usage, and best practices — framework design expertise is not required. Hands-on expertise in: Web automation (Selenium / Playwright / Cypress) API automation (REST Assured / Postman / similar tools) Thick…