Software QA Engineer

SmartLight Analytics is looking for an automation-first QA Engineer to build and own test automation across our internal tools, carrier-facing APIs, and carrier and customer portals. This is a hands-on engineering role, not a manual-testing position with automation on the side: you'll design, build, and maintain an automated test framework (e.g., Playwright) as the primary way we catch regressions and gate releases, and you'll bring AI-enabled tooling into how tests get written and maintained. 

What You'll Do 

• Design, build, and maintain automated regression suites (Playwright or an equivalent modern framework) covering internal tools, carrier-facing APIs, and carrier and customer portals 

• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD so they run on every relevant change without manual triggering 

• Evaluate and apply AI-enabled testing tools - AI-assisted test generation, self-healing selectors, AI-assisted defect triage - to speed up authoring and maintenance while keeping a clear standard for what still needs human review 

• Act as the release quality gate for the toolsets you own: sign off on releases based on automated test results, or make an explicit, documented risk call when something isn't ready 

• Find, isolate, and clearly document defects with reproducible steps, expected vs. actual behavior, and severity 

• Prioritize test coverage by risk - carrier- and customer-facing paths, compliance-relevant flows, and high-usage features get coverage first 

• Partner closely with Software Engineering and Product throughout the development cycle so testing isn't a bottleneck bolted on at the end 

• Build and document repeatable QA practice - test architecture, coverage standards, release-gate criteria - so quality doesn't depend on any one person's memory 

• Produce testing and change-management artifacts that hold up as evidence under compliance frameworks like SOC 2 

What We're Looking For 

• Hands-on experience building and maintaining automated test suites with Playwright or a directly comparable modern automation framework (Cypress, Selenium/WebDriver, etc.) 

• Experience testing both UI and API layers, including reasoning about API contracts and data flows for integration testing 

• Experience integrating automated tests into a CI/CD pipeline 

• Practical experience using AI tooling to accelerate software testing work - test generation, test maintenance, or defect triage - with good judgment about where AI output needs verification 

• Strong defect isolation and reproduction skills; writes bug reports engineers can act on without back-and-forth 

• Sound risk judgment - can distinguish a cosmetic issue from one that threatens data integrity, compliance posture, or customer/carrier trust 

• Comfortable being a release gatekeeper: can say "this isn't ready" and back it up with evidence 

• Self-directed and comfortable building and improving automation process independently 

Nice to Have 

• Experience testing systems in a regulated or compliance-sensitive environment (SOC 2, HIPAA-adjacent, or similar) 

• Experience testing external-facing API integrations with third-party partners 

• Familiarity with Python and/or Snowflake-adjacent data pipelines, enough to sanity-check data quality issues surfaced during testing 

• Experience standing up or significantly leveling up an automation framework 

Reporting & Team 

This role sits within Software Engineering, working closely with engineering, Product, and Data Platforms, with room to grow into a broader quality engineering function as SmartLight's toolset and carrier/customer-facing surfaces expand.