Senior SDET: Automation Lead for Mission-Critical Apps

Eccalon, LLC; Hanover (MD); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Eccalon is seeking a Senior SDET / QA Automation Engineer to build and own automated testing strategy across web apps and backend services supporting DoD, Intelligence, and enterprise programs. You will design robust test frameworks, integrate quality gates into CI/CD pipelines, and ensure the reliability of systems operating in regulated, compliance-driven environments.

This is a hands-on senior role with broad visibility across the full engineering stack—working directly with software

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years of experience in SDET, QA automation, or related field.
• Hands-on proficiency with Playwright and/or Cypress for UI automation.
• Strong API testing skills using Postman and REST Assured.
• Solid programming skills in JavaScript/TypeScript and/or Python.
• Experience integrating test automation into CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI/CD or Jenkins).
• Familiarity with AWS services (Cognito, RDS, DynamoDB) and cloud test design.
• Experience testing authentication and authorization flows (OAuth2, SAML, OIDC).
• Excellent communication and ability to work independently.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain end-to-end UI automation frameworks using Playwright and Cypress across web applications (e.g., lynxconnect.io, eccalon.com).
• Develop and maintain API and backend test suites using Postman collections and REST Assured; validate authentication flows, data integrity, and service contracts.
• Write clean, maintainable test code in Python and/or JavaScript/TypeScript; enforce consistent standards through code reviews and shared libraries.
• Build reusable test utilities, fixtures, and data factories that reduce test setup overhead and improve suite reliability.
• Integrate automated test suites into CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI/CD) to enforce quality gates on every pull request and deployment.
• Configure and maintain synthetic monitoring scripts (e.g., Playwright-based uptime checks) for production applications; triage and resolve false positives.
• Define and track test coverage metrics, pass rates, and flakiness trends; report quality signals to engineering leadership.
• Validate REST APIs against specifications; test authentication and authorization flows including OAuth2, SAML, OIDC, and JIT provisioning patterns.
• Develop data-driven test scenarios against AWS-hosted services (RDS/PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, Cognito) and Azure-backed platforms (GCC High).
• Collaborate with backend engineers to identify testability gaps in service design and recommend interface contracts that support automation.
• Partner with DevOps, software engineering, and IT teams to embed testing earlier in the development lifecycle; contribute to definition-of-done criteria.
• Serve as the quality subject matter expert on the team—mentoring engineers on test best practices, automation patterns, and tooling selection.
• Maintain test documentation, test plans, and traceability matrices that satisfy compliance audit and ATO evidence requirements.
• Evaluate and recommend improvements to the overall QA toolchain and processes as applications and team scale.

Skills

JavaScript/TypeScript

Python

API testing

Independent work

Quality risk communication

Test strategy

Mentoring

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CS/Engineering or related field

Tools

Playwright

Cypress

Postman

REST Assured

GitLab CI/CD

Jenkins

Newman

Job description

Eccalon is seeking a Senior SDET / QA Automation Engineer to build and own automated testing strategy across web apps and backend services supporting DoD, Intelligence, and enterprise programs. You will design robust test frameworks, integrate quality gates into CI/CD pipelines, and ensure the reliability of systems operating in regulated, compliance-driven environments.

This is a hands-on senior role with broad visibility across the full engineering stack—working directly with software