Job Information
Kroger Family of Companies Lead/Senior Full Stack UI & API Automation QA Engineer in Blue Ash, Ohio
This role is a Lead/Senior Full Stack UI & API Automation QA Engineer and is on the QA CoE Team and is crucial for advancing QA automation and quality strategy, offering leadership and technical expertise in UI and API testing. The QA Automation Engineer will design scalable automation frameworks using modern and AI-driven solutions, mentor team members, and integrate quality into CI/CD pipelines and cloud environments. Responsibilities include leading proof-of-concept projects, promoting best practices, and enhancing automated testing as a code-focused, DevOps-integrated professional.
The position collaborates with Engineering, Product, DevOps, AI, and Security teams to ensure applications are reliable, scalable, and production ready.
Lead and support quality assurance programs and processes in alignment with QA strategy and deliverables in an Agile/Scrum environment with minimal guidance. Responsible for providing feedback and coaching on artifacts developed during requirements and analysis phase within client projects; authoring test cases/scripts; and performing test execution. Demonstrate the company's core values of respect, honesty, integrity, diversity, inclusion and safety.
RESPONSIBILITIES - Guide testing efforts involving coaching, mentoring, code reviews, and contributing to improvements to frameworks, tools, processes and best practices
Provide oversight to ensure automation test suites are well maintained and operational
Provide accurate estimates for QA efforts including test case design/scripting, test data management, execution and defect correction
Understand Kroger's core quality metrics and how to utilize them to foster quality improvement
Design, develop, analyze, document and support CoE activities that drive continuous improvement across the organization
Manage quality assurance and testing projects, schedules, tasks and deliverables
Communicate quality issues and recommendations to improve quality to senior level management
Consult with technical development leads on feature designs to ensure product testability and identify coverage gaps in existing test tools or technologies
Develop and maintain software quality dashboards aligned with committed software quality SLAs and KPIs
Automate test cases and functional libraries using open source and commercial tools
Lead and coach CI/CD and SDLC/TDLC concepts: code review best practices, code coverage analysis, continuous test and delivery
Consult on automation tools/techniques, feasibility/implementation, process improvements and maintenance plans
Drive creative and innovative technical concepts to automate workflows from ideation to operational tools, designed with the capability to be reusable, maintainable and efficient
Support complex systems with significant integration points, external Third-Party systems through RESTful, and other protocol APIs and multi-step authorization factors
Develop and/or recommend tools to assist test engineers in test planning, execution and reporting
Exhibit strong stakeholder relationship, interpersonal, analytical and problem-solving skills
Must be able to perform the essential job functions of this position with or without reasonable accommodation
Drive and execute the Automation (UI/API) QA strategy, establish the vision and direction for automation-focused quality assurance
Provide hands-on leadership and promote best practices in automation.
Lead and mentor SOA and UI automation teams for technical growth.
Oversee QA roadmap, maintain standards, and manage tool migrations (e.g., Azure).
Deliver AI-driven automation innovation and implement pilots.
Integrate automation into CI/CD pipelines and manage QA tools.
Optimize enterprise-wide tools license management and resolve issues.
Coordinate recruitment, hiring, and onboarding for automation expertise.
QUALIFICATIONS Minimum
Any experience working in an Agile/Scrum environment
Any experience with continuous integration tools
Any proven experience managing test environments and data
Any proven experience with defect management and tools
1 year of experience using SQL or other query methods to validate data changes in the database
3+ years of experience utilizing riskbased testing techniques
3+ years of experience with test case management and tools
5+ years of experience working with automated test frameworks and runners
5+ years of experience developing and executing automated test scripts
5+ years of experience leading QA Process improvements
8+ years of experience in a QA and software testing position
Experience mentoring and coaching others (remote & onsite)
Desired
Bachelors Degree Computer Science or related information technology field
Any experience with creating and using test data management tools
Any experience working in environments utilizing the OKR work process
Any experience with automated testing in a cloud environment
Familiarity with NoSQL Databases
7+ years of experience writing Selenium/playwright tests in Java or Javascript using ( Web Driver ,typescript, Web Driver IO, Marathon , Appium etc.)
7+ years of handson, automation testing of integration web services ( REST and SOAP protocols) that include database validations using tools like ( Karate , Postman, Rest Assured , SOAP UI Pro etc.)
Demonstrated experience in XML, XSD, XPath, MQTT, Topics, Kafka, HTTP, HTTPS, JSON, Bytes array message format
5+ years of experience with test runners (Junit, TestNG, Mocha, Jasmine)
5+ years of experience with CI tools (GitHub Actions, Jenkins, TeamCity, GitLab