Lead Automation QA Engineer

You will join a product team and spend roughly half your time in hands-on testing and automation while owning QA technical direction and consistency across the Back Office Domain. You will analyze requirements, design tests, write and maintain automated and manual tests for backend APIs, UI, integrations, and message queues. You will maintain and expand the Python-based automation framework, integrate tests into CI/CD, analyze failed runs, perform RCA, report defects, and participate in releases and production validation. You will mentor other QA engineers, support reviews, and help improve QA processes, quality gates, and delivery confidence.

Responsibilities

• Be an active part of a Scrum product team and keep around 50% hands-on contribution
• Do requirements analysis, test design, manual and automated testing for backend/API, UI, integrations, message queues, and complex business flows
• Develop and maintain test documentation
• Automate test cases and improve regression coverage using the existing Python-based framework
• Maintain and expand the test automation framework, including mocks, test data, CI/CD integration, and reporting
• Analyze failed test runs, perform RCA, report defects, and help the team improve product quality
• Participate in release activities, smoke testing, production validation, and post-release monitoring
• Own QA technical direction for the team and help scale consistent QA practices across the Back Office Domain
• Improve QA processes, quality gates, automation strategy, and delivery confidence together with QA, Dev, DevOps, Product, and Engineering Manager
• Mentor QA engineers, support code/test case reviews, and help grow QA engineering maturity in the team

Requirements

• 6+ years of experience in Quality Assurance, including manual and automation testing
• Experience as QA Lead, QA Tech Lead, Senior FullStack QA, Automation Lead, or similar role
• Strong experience with Python-based test automation
• Proficiency with Pytest and API/backend automation
• Experience with Playwright or similar UI automation tools
• Experience with functional and non-functional testing
• Strong understanding of QA approaches, testing principles, test pyramid, risk-based testing, and test coverage strategy
• Good understanding of SDLC from requirements analysis to deployment and production monitoring
• Experience with REST API testing, message queues, and third-party integrations
• Experience with CI/CD systems and test automation integration into pipelines
• Experience with Allure TestOps or similar test management/reporting tools
• Experience with observability and troubleshooting tools such as Sentry, Grafana, ELK/OpenSearch, or similar
• Good SQL skills
• Independence, proactivity, ownership, and strong communication skills
• Ability to quickly learn new things
• Good level of spoken and written English and Russian
• Experience in fintech, crypto, payments, compliance, financial operations, or other complex domains with heavy business logic (nice to have)
• Experience with Kubernetes, Docker, ArgoCD, GitOps, or cloud-native environments (nice to have)
• Experience with Kafka, NSQ, Debezium, Ledger-like systems, or event-driven architecture (nice to have)
• Experience with performance testing tools such as k6 or Locust (nice to have)
• Experience with contract testing, mocks, fakers (nice to have)
• Experience building QA metrics, quality gates, release readiness dashboards (nice to have)

Benefits

• Benefit Bar up to €250/month
• Fully remote work from almost anywhere
• Optional offices and relocation support
• Flexible, async-friendly environment
• Budget for courses, certifications, and professional development
• Language learning support
• Medical insurance or reimbursement depending on location
• Access to mental health support
• Financial support for important life events
• Merch shop with rewards system
• Team offsites and company events