About Smart Working
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Our mission is simple: to break down geographic barriers and connect skilled professionals with outstanding global teams and products for full-time, long-term roles. We help you discover meaningful work with teams that invest in your success, where you're empowered to grow personally and professionally.

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About the Role
We're looking for a QA Automation Lead to evolve our client's QA function from a heavily manual model toward a scalable, risk-based automation approach - while maintaining oversight of existing manual processes.

This is a hands-on role (approximately 60% hands-on), leading a team of 4 QA engineers. The current stack uses TypeScript, WebdriverIO, and Appium, but automation maturity is still early, and the team relies significantly on manual testing today.

The primary product is a mobile banking app, so the role is heavily mobile-focused (iOS/Android), with an emphasis on end-to-end user journey testing and strong judgment around building an effective testing pyramid across mobile, UI, API, and manual layers.

Responsibilities

  • Define and drive the QA automation strategy, improving framework quality, test coverage, and overall automation maturity
  • Lead, mentor, and support a team of QA engineers, providing both technical guidance and hands-on contribution
  • Design, build, and maintain scalable UI and end-to-end automation frameworks in TypeScript using WebdriverIO and Playwright
  • Own and evolve mobile automation across iOS and Android using Appium and BrowserStack
  • Apply a risk-based testing approach to make informed decisions on test prioritisation, coverage trade-offs, and release confidence
  • Shape a balanced testing pyramid across mobile, UI, API/service-level, and manual testing layers
  • Improve and optimise automated test execution within CI/CD pipelines
  • Manage bug tracking, triage, and failure analysis, providing clear reporting on quality metrics and risks
  • Collaborate with engineering, product, and platform teams to improve testability and embed QA best practices
  • Support longer-term expansion into non-functional testing areas such as performance, load, and securit

Requirements

  • 6+ years of experience in QA / Test Automation in production environments
  • Proven experience leading or mentoring QA engineers and owning automation direction
  • Strong ability to define and evolve automation strategy, not just implement individual tests
  • Solid manual QA fundamentals, including exploratory and regression testing
  • Hands-on experience building or improving UI and end-to-end automation frameworks using tools such as WebdriverIO, Playwright, Cypress, or Selenium
  • Experience with mobile testing and automation on iOS and/or Android in business-critical environments
  • Strong understanding of risk-based testing and test pyramid principles
  • Experience with API and service-level testing
  • Experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines
  • Comfortable with defect management, failure analysis, and QA reporting
  • Proficiency in TypeScript or JavaScript-based automation (TypeScript preferred); Python, Java, or Kotlin also welcome
  • Strong collaboration skills across engineering, product, and platform team

Nice to Have

  • Experience with Appium, BrowserStack, XCUITest, or Espresso
  • Experience testing React Native applications
  • Exposure to performance, load, or non-functional testing
  • Experience in fintech, banking, or similarly regulated environments
  • Familiarity with security-focused testing practices
  • Broader backend or service-level testing experience beyond UI automation

At Smart Working, you’ll never be just another remote hire.

Be a Smart Worker - valued, empowered, and part of a culture that celebrates integrity, excellence, and ambition.

If that sounds like your kind of place, we’d love to hear your story.