Senior QA Automation Engineer New York, NY | Full-Time | Hybrid
About the Role
We're working with a well-funded, early-stage technology team building an AI-native platform in a complex, data-heavy industry. Their engineering org is small, senior, and moving fast - and they're looking for a QA lead who understands that quality assurance is changing just as rapidly as the development practices it supports.
They are looking for someone who can own and evolve their QA automation practice and think about quality engineering in the context of how software is actually being built today - where AI-assisted development is accelerating both feature delivery and the surface area for bugs and vulnerabilities.
In Your First Six Months, You Will
- Own and reimagine the QA automation framework - not just run it, but actively evolve it for an agentic development environment
- Build and refine testing pipelines that work alongside AI-assisted workflows, where both feature teams and quality teams are moving faster than traditional human code review can scale
- Take ownership of application security testing as a core part of the QA function - running vulnerability scans, contributing to penetration testing workflows, and using AI tooling to stay ahead of security risk in an accelerating codebase
- Partner closely with backend and data engineering leads to define and uphold release quality standards
- Identify gaps in the current process and help build toward a model where both functional QA and security validation scale with the team, not against it
Why This Role
Development is changing, and quality engineering has to change with it. This team is building something genuinely ambitious in a complex, data-heavy space - and they need a QA lead who sees that as an opportunity, not a challenge to manage around. If you want ownership, direct access to engineering leadership, and the chance to define what modern QA looks like in an agentic development environment, this is worth a conversation.
A Little About You
- 7+ years in QA engineering with strong hands-on automation experience (Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, or equivalent)
- You've spent real time over the past year experimenting with AI tools and thinking about how they change testing and quality workflows - not just using them, but building a point of view on them
- Solid working knowledge of application security - DAST/SAST tooling, vulnerability scanning, basic penetration testing concepts - you're not a dedicated security engineer, but you know enough to own this function, ask the right questions, and get the most out of the tools available to you
- You think about QA and security as two sides of the same problem: teams shipping faster means more surface area to protect, and you're energized by that challenge rather than overwhelmed by it
- You've owned QA process end-to-end in a fast-moving environment and delivered it by setting standards, not just following them
- Strong communicator with high standards for quality and the flexibility to propose and adapt new tools as they go from novel to essential
Extra Points
- Experience in fintech, insurtech, or other regulated-adjacent industries
- Exposure to agentic development pipelines or LLM-integrated applications
- Security certifications (CEH, OSCP, or similar) - nice to have, not required
- Early-stage or lean startup experience
Compensation & Benefits
In addition, the client offers equity, health insurance, 401K, paid holidays, and flexible PTO. This is a hybrid role based in New York City.