Senior Automation & Quality Engineer- 6 Month Project- Riyadh, KSA

We are seeking a Senior Automation & Quality Engineer to own and scale our automation and quality practices across web applications, APIs, and cloud-native workloads. This role is hands-on and production-focused—responsible for building reliable automated testing, performance/load testing, and quality gates integrated into GitLab CI/CD. You will work closely with developers and platform teams to improve release confidence, reduce regressions, and ensure performance readiness. This role requires proven hands-on capability in automation and performance testing at scale. If you do not have practical experience with Playwright/Selenium, JMeter, GitLab pipelines, and Java/Python automation, you are not the one. Key Responsibilities 1) Test Automation (UI, API, Integration) - Design and maintain end-to-end (E2E) automation using Playwright and Selenium across critical user journeys. - Develop maintainable automation frameworks and reusable test components in Java and Python. - Implement robust test strategies: smoke tests, regression suites, integration tests, and API tests aligned with release workflows. - Ensure stable execution in CI environments with proper test data handling, environment readiness checks, and reporting. 2) Performance & Load Testing - Build and execute performance/load test plans using JMeter and k8s-based load testing approaches (distributed execution when needed). - Define performance baselines and SLAs (response time, throughput, error rate) and validate against real-world scenarios. - Analyze bottlenecks and provide actionable recommendations (application, database, infrastructure, or platform-related). 3) CI/CD Quality Gates (GitLab) - Integrate automation suites into GitLab pipelines as enforceable quality gates (merge request validations, pre-release gates, scheduled regression). - Implement pipeline best practices: parallelization, caching, artifact handling, test retries logic, and reliable reporting. - Enforce standards for code quality and test readiness, ensuring “done” includes automation coverage and measurable quality signals. 4) Unit Testing & Developer Enablement - Define and enforce unit test expectations with developers (coverage targets, critical module focus, fast feedback cycles). - Support teams in improving testability and writing reliable unit tests (especially for high-risk components). - Promote consistent test patterns and shift-left quality practices. 5) Workflow Automation (n8n) - Build workflow automations using n8n to streamline quality operations (e.g., triggering tests, notifications, approvals, reporting dashboards). - Automate repeatable QA processes to reduce manual effort and increase consistency. 6) Reporting, Documentation & Quality Governance - Produce clear quality dashboards and reports: pass/fail trends, flakiness tracking, performance trends, release readiness indicators. - Document test strategies, runbooks, and standard operating procedures. - Participate in incident reviews/RCA and introduce preventive quality controls. Requirements - 5+ years of experience in QA Automation / SDET / Quality Engineering (senior level, hands-on). - Strong hands-on expertise with: - Playwright and/or Selenium for E2E automation - JMeter for performance and load testing - GitLab CI/CD integration and pipeline-driven quality gates - Automation development in Java and Python - Unit test practices and supporting engineering teams with testing standards - Experience running tests in containerized/cloud-native environments and handling CI reliability challenges (test stability, environment readiness, reporting). Strong Advantages (Nice to Have) - Distributed load testing in Kubernetes (k8s execution patterns, scalability, reliability). - Test reporting frameworks and dashboards (trend analysis, flakiness reduction). - HRDF-Restricted-Internal - API mocking/service virtualization strategies for reliable automated testing. - Experience with release governance and quality sign-off frameworks. - Benefits - Medical Insurance - Social Insurance - Iqama Issuing - Air tickets