Lead Automation Engineer

Rakbank; United Arab Emirates; On-site; AED 300,000 - 550,000; Full time

Job summary

Rakbank is seeking a Lead Test Automation Engineer to drive the bank's automation strategy across digital channels, core banking platforms, APIs, and mobile apps. This hands-on leadership role builds scalable frameworks, accelerates CI/CD quality delivery, and reduces manual testing across mission-critical banking platforms.

You will mentor automation engineers, set standards, and collaborate with Development, DevOps, Product, and QA teams to embed quality and testability, ensuring robust

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a software testing, computer science or engineering field.
• 8+ years of software testing experience with at least 3 years in automation leadership within financial services.

Responsibilities

• Lead design, development and scaling of enterprise-wide test automation frameworks across web, mobile, API and core banking platforms.
• Build and maintain robust regression suites to improve coverage and speed while reducing manual testing.
• Drive automation adoption by integrating testing into CI/CD pipelines and setting governance.
• Lead API, integration, mobile and performance testing initiatives for banking applications.
• Define standards, guidelines and best practices for internal and vendor teams.
• Own test data management, environment readiness and automation reporting.

Skills

Leadership

Mentoring

Problem‑solving

Stakeholder management

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Software Testing or related field

Tools

Playwright

Selenium

WebDriverIO

Appium

Maestro

K6

Postman

REST Assured

Cucumber

Behave

Azure DevOps

Jenkins

GitLab

Docker

UiPath Test Suite

Job description

Job Description

Rakbank is seeking a highly skilled LeadTestAutomationEngineer to drive the bank's enterprise-wide test automation strategy across digital channels, core banking platforms, APIs, mobile applications, and integration layers. This is a hands‑on leadership role responsible for building scalable automation frameworks, accelerating CI/CD quality delivery, improving test coverage, and reducing manual testing effort across mission‑critical banking platforms. You will work closely with Development, DevOps, Product, and Quality Engineering teams to establish automation excellence, implement shift‑left testing practices, and ensure robust quality gates throughout the software delivery lifecycle.

What You Will Do

• Lead the design, development, and scaling of enterprise-wide test automation frameworks across web, mobile, API, and core banking platforms.
• Build and maintain robust regression suites that improve test coverage, execution speed, and defect detection while reducing manual testing effort.
• Drive automation adoption across the software development lifecycle by integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines and quality gates.
• Lead API, integration, mobile, and performance testing initiatives across critical banking applications and customer journeys.
• Define automation standards, best practices, coding guidelines, and governance across internal and vendor teams.
• Own test data management, environment readiness, and automation reporting to ensure reliable and repeatable test execution.
• Partner with Engineering, DevOps, Product, and Quality teams to embed quality and testability into solution delivery.
• Mentor and develop automation engineers through technical leadership, code reviews, and knowledge sharing.
• Support intelligent automation, RPA testing, and continuous improvement initiatives that enhance delivery quality and efficiency.

What You Will Bring

• Bacheor's Degree plus 8-10 years of software testing experience, including at least 3 years leading automation initiatives within banking or financial services environments.
• Strong expertise in automation framework design using tools such as Playwright, Selenium, WebDriverIO, Appium, and Maestro.
• Hands‑on programming experience with Python/PyTest and working knowledge of JavaScript, TypeScript, or Java.
• Proven experience in API automation, performance testing, and integration testing across complex enterprise applications.
• Strong knowledge of CI/CD platforms such as Azure DevOps, Jenkins, or GitLab, including containerized and parallel test execution.
• Experience with test data management, SQL validation, service virtualization, and automation reporting frameworks.
• Solid understanding of retail and business banking systems, digital channels, and quality engineering best practices.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and debugging capabilities with the ability to identify and resolve complex quality issues.
• Excellent stakeholder management, communication, and leadership skills with a passion for mentoring and developing high‑performing teams.

Preferred Skills

• Expertise in web, mobile, API, and performance test automation using Playwright, Selenium, WebDriverIO, Appium, Maestro, K6, and JMeter.
• Strong programming capabilities in Python/PyTest with working knowledge of JavaScript, TypeScript, and Java.
• Hands‑on experience in API and contract testing using Postman, Newman, REST Assured, and BDD frameworks such as Cucumber and Behave.
• Proven experience integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps, Jenkins, GitLab, Docker, and cloud execution platforms.
• Skilled in service virtualization, test data management, synthetic data generation, SQL/database validation, and log/API trace analysis.
• Experienced with Azure DevOps Test Plans, Jira, UiPath Test Suite, RPA testing, and intelligent automation workflows.