QA Automation Engineer Lead

Principal QA Automation Engineers perform a critical role - both building and implementing the automation strategy for measuring the quality of new features but also of mentoring and improving all aspects of quality within a Product Team. There should be a consistent focus on improving automation practices shifting quality checks left and collaboration across the team.

Context

The Principal QA Automation Engineer is a key role working within the QA leadership team and across multiple Product teams to improve how the team deliver new and existing features with minimum issues.

Principal Accountabilities:

• Work with QA and Engineering Leadership to define and implement the QA Automation strategy with a strong initial focus on web / front-end automation.
• Work across Product teams to ensure the strategy is feasible well understood and fit for purpose.
• Collaborate with other Quality Engineers and Software Developers to identify the challenges and gaps with existing automation and tooling with a view to building end-to-end plans for solving these.
• Drive and evolve the automation strategy ensuring alignment across Web Backend and Mobile.
• Build and maintain robust frameworks for example Playwright Selenium TestNG and Appium.
• Align test automation solutions for Agile DevOps and CI/CD practices ensuring test suites are integrated into CI/CD pipelines.
• Partner with Engineering Product to embed testability from day one.
• Define and Own automation KPIs and track ROI and adoption.
• Mentor engineers (onshore/offshore) and grow automation capability.
• Design the test matrix as part of planning automation to ensure correct coverage is included in the test design.
• Use data analytics to inform test approaches.
• Adhere to the Test Value Pyramid for test case identification.
• Ensure that testing is carried out in a measurable and traceable manner.
• Drive a culture of proactive testing and shared quality ownership.
• There will be a line management aspect to this role with up to 3 automation engineers reporting into it.

Essential Qualifications/Experience:

• Bachelors degree in management information systems Computer Science or equivalent formal training.
• 8 years of work experience in QA with 2 years in an SDET or Principal Automation role.
• Excellent knowledge of Playwright Selenium and TestNG
• Experience working in a fast paced Agile environment
• Ability to identify the right fit automation approaches.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to efficiently report to key stakeholders
• Strong CI/CD - experience - Jenkins Pipelines Github Actions Azure etc

Essential competencies/skills:

• Strong Java and OOP experience
• Strong experience with tools like Appium Jersey REST Assured or equivalent.
• Experience with most performant selectorsfor automation
• Experience with Atlassian applications such as JIRA Zephyr and Confluence.
• Experience with a variety of different approaches to functional testing: Automation Exploratory Scripted etc.
• Experience working in an Agile environment and working closely with other software and quality engineers
• Hands-on experience in Build Automation and code quality tools such as Jenkins Gradle SonarQube etc.
• Understanding of opportunities presented to software engineering practices by developments in AI
• Strong experience with AI coding tools such as Cursor GitHub Co-Pilot Code Rabbit etc

Desirable Criteria

• Internationally recognised QA certifications such as ISTQB
• Relevant AWS Certifications

Closing Date: 20th March 2026

At Aer Lingus we embrace diversity and believe in providing equal opportunities to all qualified individuals. We are dedicated to cultivating an inclusive and respectful work environment that values employees unique backgrounds experiences and perspectives. We do not discriminate based on race gender sexual orientation age disability or any other protected status. If you have any questions or require any accommodations to support you in your application please contact us at