QA Automation & API Engineer

QA Automation & API Engineer

Serving the largest customer ecosystem in regulated energy, HData helps utilities, regulators, advocates, advisory firms, and energy technology companies turn regulatory complexity into strategic advantage. By reducing the time and cost burdens of manual research and analysis, the HData platform enables teams to efficiently monitor regulatory developments, prepare for proceedings, mitigate potential risks, and confidently make decisions that consider comprehensive data.

We are a venture-backed Techstars company with investment from firms including Buoyant Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, Firebrand Ventures, and MassMutual Ventures. We work closely with our customers to understand their pains, and we collaborate across all teams to build and deliver exceptional products.

The Opportunity

HData is seeking an experienced QA Automation & API Engineer to join our product team and take full ownership of quality across the development lifecycle. This role is heavily focused on API testing, data validation, test automation, backend workflows, regression strategy, and technical troubleshooting.

You will own quality for the APIs we are productizing through a strategic partnership — validating new features and system behavior across APIs, data flows, UI workflows, reports, integrations, and backend processes. You will also own our test automation practice, building and maintaining our automation framework from the ground up using Testim or similar low-code/AI automation tooling. You will partner closely with developers, product managers, and engineering leadership to identify risks early, drive quality improvements, and help define testing standards and practices.

We're open on background for this role: whether you've built your career in QA automation or you're a developer moving into quality and automation engineering, what matters is that you're strong with APIs and ready to own test automation.

Who You Are

You'll thrive here if you:

• Conduct yourself with honesty, integrity, and respect in all interactions, aligned with HData's Core Values.
• Communicate effectively and operate with confidence in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
• Treat feedback and ambiguity as opportunities to add value and drive clarity.
• Believe in data-driven decision-making and apply it to your own testing approach.
• Are detail-oriented, technically sharp, and take initiative on quality improvements.
• Are comfortable influencing requirements, challenging assumptions, and advocating for quality.
• Have deep expertise in API testing, backend behavior, integrations, and data accuracy — whether that comes from a QA, SDET, or development background.
• Are energized by owning things end-to-end — from automation architecture to API quality strategy.
• Can escalate blockers with clear context and recommendations, and move things forward independently.
• Are motivated to grow in automation engineering, API quality strategy, and cross-functional product ownership.
• Can work independently on complex technical challenges while collaborating across QA, Product, and Engineering.

What You'll Do

• Own quality for the APIs we are productizing through a strategic partnership, including end-to-end validation of endpoints, request/response payloads, status codes, authentication, permissions, error handling, rate limiting, and integration flows.
• Own and build out our test automation practice, serving as the primary owner of our automation framework using Testim or similar low-code/AI automation tooling.
• Perform data validation across API responses, UI behavior, reports, exports, backend/database records, and downstream system impacts.
• Design and execute functional, smoke, integration, regression, exploratory, and user acceptance testing strategies.
• Use tools such as Insomnia, Postman, Swagger, and browser developer tools to support API and technical testing.
• Identify, document, and track software defects with clear reproduction steps, expected vs. actual results, screenshots, logs, payload examples, and other supporting evidence.
• Manage defect lifecycle, including validation of bug fixes, re-testing, and regression impact analysis.
• Troubleshoot and diagnose issues across UI, API, backend, data, integration, and environment behavior, escalating findings with clear context and supporting evidence.
• Collaborate closely with Product Managers, Developers, and other stakeholders to clarify requirements, contribute to acceptance criteria, and support issue resolution.
• Follow and help refine testing standards, documentation practices, and quality gates across releases.
• Support release and post-release validation, contributing to production readiness sign-off.

What You Bring

• 3–6 years building and/or testing software, including hands-on work with APIs and test automation - QA, SDET, and development backgrounds all welcome.
• Fluency with API testing concepts and the ability to apply them hands-on across the full request/response lifecycle.
• Deep understanding of REST architecture, methods, authentication (OAuth, API keys, JWT), rate limiting, and JSON/XML structures.
• Hands‑on experience with test automation and the ability to own a framework end‑to‑end; prior framework ownership a strong plus - ideally using Testim or similar low-code/AI automation tooling - from build through ongoing maintenance.
• Experience with SQL and database validation for verifying backend data integrity.
• Working experience with JavaScript, Python, SQL, or another programming/query language for scripting and automation.
• Ability to select and apply the right testing approach for a given risk, scope, or release context.
• Experience with JIRA or similar issue-tracking and project management tools.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and root-cause analysis skills.
• Clear, professional written and verbal communication skills.

Bonus Points

• Experience testing data-heavy platforms, regulatory or compliance systems, reporting tools, search functionality, filters, notifications, exports, or third-party integrations.
• Experience in Agile/Scrum environments, including sprint planning, backlog grooming, and release processes.
• Background in software development, particularly with backend systems or APIs.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

What We Value

• Be kind
• Think and act with humility
• Be resourceful
• Listen to others
• Show empathy
• Have fun and enjoy others

What We Offer

• Equity: We offer equity to every employee at HData.
• Location: We're a remote-based company. As long as you're in the US, you can work from anywhere!
• PTO: Flexible; we care about output, not hours.
• Benefits: Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, 401k (with a match)

HData believes the best teams are built with people of different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. We hire for talent, drive and values alignment, without regard to race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.