Software QA Engineer

SmartLight Analytics; United States; Remote; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

SmartLight Analytics seeks an automation-first QA Engineer to design, build, and own a test framework across internal tools, carrier-facing APIs, and customer portals. This is a hands-on role focused on automation, not pure manual testing.

You will develop and maintain Playwright-based regression suites, integrate tests into CI/CD, and explore AI-enabled tooling to speed up test authoring while preserving clear human review. This is a remote US position.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience building automated test suites with Playwright or a comparable modern framework.
• Experience testing both UI and API layers and reasoning about API contracts and data flows for integration testing.
• Experience integrating automated tests into a CI/CD pipeline.
• Practical experience using AI tooling to accelerate software testing work with good judgment about where AI output needs verification.
• Strong defect isolation and reproduction skills; writes bug reports engineers can act on without back-and-forth.
• Sound risk judgment - can distinguish a cosmetic issue from one that threatens data integrity, compliance posture, or customer/carrier trust.
• Comfortable being a release gatekeeper: can say "this isn't ready" and back it up with evidence.
• Self-directed and comfortable building and improving automation process independently.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain automated regression suites (Playwright or equivalent) covering internal tools, API and portals.
• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD so they run on every relevant change without manual triggering.
• Evaluate and apply AI-enabled testing tools to speed up authoring and maintenance while keeping a clear standard for human review.
• Act as the release quality gate for the toolsets you own: sign off on releases based on automated test results or document risk if not ready.
• Find, isolate, and document defects with reproducible steps, expected vs. actual behavior, and severity.
• Prioritize test coverage by risk—carrier- and customer-facing paths, compliance-relevant flows, and high-usage features.
• Partner with Software Engineering and Product throughout the development cycle so testing isn’t a bottleneck.
• Build and document repeatable QA practice—test architecture, coverage standards, release-gate criteria.
• Produce testing and change-management artifacts that hold up under compliance frameworks like SOC 2.

Job description

SmartLight Analytics is looking for an automation-first QA Engineer to build and own test automation across our internal tools, carrier-facing APIs, and carrier and customer portals. This is a hands-on engineering role, not a manual-testing position with automation on the side: you'll design, build, and maintain an automated test framework (e.g., Playwright) as the primary way we catch regressions and gate releases, and you'll bring AI-enabled tooling into how tests get written and maintained.

This is a remote role.

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and maintain automated regression suites (Playwright or an equivalent modern framework) covering internal tools, carrier-facing APIs, and carrier and customer portals
• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD so they run on every relevant change without manual triggering
• Evaluate and apply AI-enabled testing tools - AI-assisted test generation, self-healing selectors, AI-assisted defect triage - to speed up authoring and maintenance while keeping a clear standard for what still needs human review
• Act as the release quality gate for the toolsets you own: sign off on releases based on automated test results, or make an explicit, documented risk call when something isn't ready
• Find, isolate, and clearly document defects with reproducible steps, expected vs. actual behavior, and severity
• Prioritize test coverage by risk - carrier- and customer-facing paths, compliance-relevant flows, and high-usage features get coverage first
• Partner closely with Software Engineering and Product throughout the development cycle so testing isn't a bottleneck bolted on at the end
• Build and document repeatable QA practice - test architecture, coverage standards, release-gate criteria - so quality doesn't depend on any one person's memory
• Produce testing and change-management artifacts that hold up as evidence under compliance frameworks like SOC 2

What We're Looking For

• Hands-on experience building and maintaining automated test suites with Playwright or a directly comparable modern automation framework (Cypress, Selenium/WebDriver, etc.)
• Experience testing both UI and API layers, including reasoning about API contracts and data flows for integration testing
• Experience integrating automated tests into a CI/CD pipeline
• Practical experience using AI tooling to accelerate software testing work - test generation, test maintenance, or defect triage - with good judgment about where AI output needs verification
• Strong defect isolation and reproduction skills; writes bug reports engineers can act on without back-and-forth
• Sound risk judgment - can distinguish a cosmetic issue from one that threatens data integrity, compliance posture, or customer/carrier trust
• Comfortable being a release gatekeeper: can say "this isn't ready" and back it up with evidence
• Self-directed and comfortable building and improving automation process independently

Nice to Have

• Experience testing systems in a regulated or compliance-sensitive environment (SOC 2, HIPAA-adjacent, or similar)
• Experience testing external-facing API integrations with third-party partners
• Familiarity with Python and/or Snowflake-adjacent data pipelines, enough to sanity-check data quality issues surfaced during testing
• Experience standing up or significantly leveling up an automation framework

Reporting & Team

This role sits within Software Engineering, working closely with engineering, Product, and Data Platforms, with room to grow into a broader quality engineering function as SmartLight's toolset and carrier/customer-facing surfaces expand.