Senior Quality Engineer

Upshop; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Upshop is seeking a Senior Quality Engineer to own quality, reliability, and performance through strong automation, leveraging AI as a force multiplier. You will build and maintain end-to-end and API coverage, contribute to the test strategy, and shift quality left with agents, RAG, and prompt engineering.

You will stay accountable for what these systems produce, advocate for quality, and challenge weak processes in a fast-paced engineering culture, delivering high-quality software for our SaaS

Qualifications

• Experience applying AI-assisted quality practices in fast-moving teams.
• Ability to design tests with AI agents and RAG workflows.
• Strong automation across API and UI tests.
• Experience with Agile/Scrum environments.

Responsibilities

• Define and implement API/UI/test strategies for end-to-end coverage.
• Run suites, analyze failures, drive defects to close, keep pipelines trustworthy.
• Shift left: map criteria to API/Web/Mobile tests and avoid tests without evidence.
• Test traceability from design through automation; CI/release sources of truth.

Skills

AI test automation

Shift-left testing

Quality advocacy

Agile/Scrum

CI/CD automation

API/UI testing

RAG and prompt engineering

Job description

AboutUpshop:

Upshop is the foremost provider of a SaaS platform designed to streamline forecasting, ordering, production, and inventory optimization processes for food retailers. Its unified platform simplifies and enhances associate tasks, promoting smarter and more interconnected operations across Fresh, Center, DSD, and eCommerce departments. With over 450+ retailers and 50,000+ stores relying on its mission-critical operations platform globally, customers have witnessed substantial enhancements in sales, shrinkage reduction, food safety, and sustainability throughout their stores.

At Upshop, we believe that great businesses are built by great people. Our People function is at the heart of our company’s growth, ensuring we attract, develop, and retain A Players who drive our mission forward.

OverviewoftheRole:

WearelookingforaSeniorQualityEngineerwhoownsquality,reliability,andperformancethroughstrongautomation—andwhousesAIasaforcemultiplier,notasubstituteforjudgment.

You build and maintain end-to-end and API coverage, contribute to test strategy, and shift quality left with agents, RAG, and prompt engineering. You stay accountable for what those systems produce. You advocate for quality, act before you are asked, and challenge weak process, thin coverage, or “this is how we’ve always done it” when it puts the customer at risk. You adapt to a fast-paced engineering culture: changing priorities, short cycles, and delivery without lowering the quality bar.

KeyResponsibilities

• Picktherightlayer:proverulesanddatainAPItests;useUI/mobileonlywhenthatsurfaceistheproof.
• Runsuites,analyzefailures,drivedefectstoclose,andkeeppipelinestrustworthy(flakes,failingjobs,follow-upuntildone).
• Shiftleft:reviewacceptancecriteriafortestability,workfromspecificationsandscenarios,andmapeverycriteriontoAPI,Web,and/orMobile—ormarkitnotapplicablewithevidence.Donotinventtestsfromatickettitle.
• Keeptestsrequirement-tracedfromdesignthroughautomation.CI/releaseresultsarethesourceoftruthforpass/fail.
• UseAIagentstodesigncases,implementautomation,andraisereviewablePRsthatextendexistingframeworks.ApplypromptengineeringandRAGsooutputisgroundedinspecifications,existingtests,andstandards—notguessed.
• Review and correct agent output. Stop when evidence is missing. Never claim AI work passed without pipeline proof and human review. Protect secrets and customer data in prompts and retrieval.
• Ownteamqualityoutcomes:coverage,automationstandards,PRgates,andreleasereadiness—notjustassignedtickets.
• Stayeffectivewhenscope,priorities,ortimelinesmove.Re-plancoverage,communicateriskearly,andkeepautomationandpipelinesusableunderdeliverypressure.

RequiredSkills

• PracticaluseofAIcodingagents,withpromptengineeringandretrieval-backed(RAG)workflows;judgmenttoaccept,revise,orstopgeneratedwork.
• Shift-leftmindset:earlytestability,requirement-tracedautomation,humanaccountabilityforAI-assistedquality.
• Proactive,quality-advocateposture:ownsoutcomes,stepsoutsidethecomfortzone,andchallengesweakdefaults.
• Provenabilitytoadapttoafast-pacedengineeringcultureanddeliverqualityunderchangingpriorities.
• ExperienceworkinginAgile/Scrumenvironments.
• CI/CDintegrationofautomatedtests;performance/loadtools.
• Spec-drivenoragenticworkflows;evaluatingqualityofRAGorconversationalAIfeatures.