Staff QA Automation Engineer

Empower Pharmacy; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Empower Pharmacy seeks a Staff QA Automation Engineer to lead enterprise automation architecture and quality standards. You will drive AI-assisted testing, framework evolution, and scalable pipelines, partnering with leaders to deliver reliable software across the organization.

This role requires deep expertise in test automation, performance engineering, and governance, with significant autonomy and strategic impact in a regulated healthcare tech environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in CS/SE or equivalent experience.
• 12+ years in software quality assurance or test automation.
• Experience leading enterprise automation strategy and standards.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted testing preferred.

Responsibilities

• Own the automation framework architecture and multi-year roadmap.
• Define scalable design patterns and reusable components.
• Pilot AI-enabled testing, self-healing automation, and observability.
• Lead pipeline health, performance testing, and capacity planning.
• Establish enterprise validation strategies across APIs and data stores.
• Mentor engineers and influence cross-team quality practices.

Skills

QA Automation

Automation Frameworks

AI in Testing

Performance Testing

Leadership

Test strategy

Education

Bachelor's in CS/SE

Tools

Azure DevOps

GitHub

SQL

Docker

CI/CD

Job description

Empower Pharmacy is a visionary healthcare company dedicated to making quality, affordable medication accessible to millions of patients nationwide. As the nation’s most advanced 503A compounding pharmacy and FDA-registered 503B outsourcing facility, we’re redefining what’s possible in personalized medicine and pharmaceutical manufacturing. We’re proud to be recognized as one of Houston’s fastest-growing private companies and ranked #116 in Healthcare & Medical on the Inc. 5000 List for 2025.

Our strength is built on four core values: People, Quality, Service, and Innovation. Guided by these principles, we’ve created a uniquely integrated healthcare platform powered by advanced technology, operational excellence, and a relentless commitment to patient care. From manufacturing and quality control to distribution and customer experience, our teams work together to raise industry standards, expand access to critical medications, and improve outcomes for patients and providers across the country.

At Empower, joining our team means more than starting a new role. It means becoming part of a mission-driven organization that’s transforming healthcare at scale. We invest deeply in our people, encourage bold thinking, and create opportunities for growth, leadership, and innovation at every level. Your ideas matter here, your development is supported, and the work you do has a direct impact on the lives of millions.

If you thrive in a fast-moving, purpose-driven environment where innovation, collaboration, and ambition come together, Empower Pharmacy is the place for you. Let’s transform healthcare together.

Position Summary:

Empower is seeking a Staff QA Automation Engineer to serve as the enterprise technical authority for quality engineering, driving the architecture, governance, and evolution of scalable automation capabilities across the organization. This role owns the long-term strategy for automation frameworks, testing practices, and quality engineering standards that improve software reliability, accelerate delivery, and enable data-driven decision making. Leveraging AI as a force multiplier, the Staff QA Automation Engineer advances automation speed, scale, quality, and engineering productivity through intelligent tooling, predictive insights, and reusable platform capabilities. Operating with significant autonomy, this role influences engineering strategy across Empower's hyper-growth, highly regulated 503A and 503B environment, partnering with technology leaders to solve complex technical challenges while demonstrating exceptional strategic thinking, execution rigor, innovation, and continuous learning agility.

Responsibilities:

• Framework Ownership: Own the technical architecture, governance, and multi-year roadmap for Empower's enterprise automation ecosystem, ensuring scalable, reusable, and maintainable capabilities across UI, API, performance, accessibility, visual, and end-to-end testing. Leverage AI-assisted engineering, predictive analytics, and emerging automation technologies to accelerate framework evolution, improve engineering efficiency, and establish enterprise-wide quality engineering standards that support long-term business growth.
• Architecture Design: Define automation architecture and quality engineering strategy for new platforms, products, and enterprise initiatives before implementation begins. Establish scalable design patterns, reusable framework components, and engineering standards that enable consistent automation practices while improving delivery speed, software quality, maintainability, and cross-team collaboration throughout the software development lifecycle.
• Technology Innovation: Evaluate, pilot, and introduce emerging automation technologies, including AI-assisted test generation, self-healing automation, intelligent test optimization, and next-generation observability solutions. Continuously assess industry trends to modernize engineering capabilities, improve execution quality, reduce maintenance effort, and position Empower's automation ecosystem for future scalability.

Technical Excellence

• Framework Standards: Architect reusable framework components including Page Objects, API clients, authentication utilities, fixtures, reporting modules, test data management, and validation libraries that establish consistent engineering patterns across teams. Define coding standards, documentation, and governance processes that improve automation quality, maintainability, scalability, and long-term platform sustainability.
• Validation Strategy: Define enterprise strategies for API contract validation, response schema verification, database validation, Salesforce integration testing, and cross-platform data integrity. Resolve highly complex integration challenges while establishing repeatable validation methodologies that improve confidence in application behavior, data accuracy, and enterprise system reliability.
• Performance Engineering: Lead enterprise performance testing strategy using modern load testing frameworks, establishing methodologies for capacity planning, scalability assessment, stress testing, spike testing, and production readiness. Apply AI-driven analytics and performance intelligence to identify bottlenecks, predict capacity risks, and support informed architectural decisions before release.

Platform Reliability

• Pipeline Optimization: Own the technical health, architecture, scalability, and reliability of automated execution pipelines across Azure DevOps, GitHub, Docker, and cloud environments. Continuously optimize execution performance through automation, intelligent orchestration, AI-assisted diagnostics, and resilient engineering practices that improve deployment confidence and reduce operational risk.
• Quality Visibility: Define enterprise reporting strategies integrating Jira, Xray, Allure, Microsoft Teams, Prometheus, Grafana, and other engineering platforms to deliver trusted quality metrics and actionable operational insights. Ensure automation results provide meaningful visibility that supports leadership decision-making, release readiness, and continuous improvement across engineering organizations.
• Root Cause: Lead investigation of the organization's most complex automation failures, pipeline instability, flaky tests, performance degradation, and integration issues. Drive systemic engineering improvements by identifying underlying technical causes, implementing durable architectural solutions, and eliminating recurring quality risks rather than applying temporary fixes.

Technical Leadership

• Engineering Governance: Establish enterprise-wide automation governance through technical reviews, engineering standards, architectural guidance, and quality engineering best practices. Influence engineering decisions across multiple teams while ensuring consistent implementation of scalable automation patterns that strengthen software quality and accelerate product delivery.
• Technical Mentorship: Mentor senior and mid-level quality engineers by providing technical coaching, architectural guidance, and expert support for the organization's most challenging automation initiatives. Foster engineering excellence through knowledge sharing, design reviews, and continuous development that elevates technical capability across the quality engineering function.
• Strategic Partnership: Partner with engineering leadership, architects, product management, DevOps, and cross-functional stakeholders to align automation strategy with business objectives, product roadmaps, and technology investments. Represent quality engineering in architectural planning while communicating automation value, engineering metrics, AI adoption strategies, and return on investment to executive leadership.

Knowledge and Skills:

• Demonstrated ability to evaluate and implement AI-assisted engineering capabilities, predictive quality analytics, self-healing automation, and intelligent test optimization that improve engineering productivity, software quality, decision-making, and enterprise scalability.
• Advanced expertise in performance engineering, API contract validation, cloud-based development platforms, Git workflows, Azure DevOps, GitHub, SQL, enterprise integrations, and observability technologies, with the ability to solve highly complex technical challenges across distributed systems.
• Exceptional strategic thinking, technical leadership, communication, collaboration, and mentoring skills, with the ability to influence architecture decisions, establish enterprise engineering standards, build organizational consensus, and drive continuous improvement across multiple cross-functional teams.

Experience and Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical discipline, or an equivalent combination of education and progressive professional experience in software quality engineering, automation architecture, or software development.
• Twelve (12) or more years of progressive experience in software quality assurance, test automation, quality engineering, or software development in test, including demonstrated success leading enterprise automation strategy, architecting scalable frameworks, and influencing technical direction across multiple engineering teams without direct authority.
• Preferred experience includes designing enterprise automation platforms from inception, implementing AI-assisted testing technologies, accessibility automation, containerized execution, cloud platforms, healthcare or other regulated industries, and industry-recognized certifications such as ISTQB Advanced or Expert Level, Test Automation Engineer, Microsoft Azure, AWS, GitHub, Salesforce, Agile, or DevOps professional certifications.
• Customer Focus: Builds trust through customer-centric solutions.
• Strategic AI: Guides responsible AI adoption and adaptation.
• Optimizes Work Processes: Drives efficiency with continuous improvement.
• Collaborates: Partners effectively to achieve shared goals.
• Resourcefulness: Secures and deploys resources efficiently.
• Manages Complexity: Simplifies and solves complex challenges.
• Ensures Accountability: Delivers on commitments with integrity.
• Situational Adaptability: Adjusts approach to shifting conditions.
• Communicates Effectively: Tailors messages to diverse audiences.

Values:

• People: Empowering people defines who we are.
• Quality: Excellence in every product, every time.
• Service: Serving others is our highest purpose.
• Innovation: Advancing care through technology and discovery.

Employee Benefits, Health, and Wellness:

While performing the responsibilities of the job, the employee is required to talk and hear. The employee is often required to remain in a stationary position for a significant amount of the workday and frequently use their hands and fingers to handle or feel in order to access, input, and retrieve information from the computer and other office productivity devices. Employees are regularly required to move about the office and around the corporate campus. The employee is regularly required to stand, walk, reach with arms and hands, climb or balance, and to stoop, kneel, crouch or crawl.