Staff Software Development Engineer L5

Job Overview

We are seeking an experienced Staff Software Development Engineer – L5 to lead our test automation strategy and engineering initiatives. The ideal candidate will have a minimum of 10 years of software testing and automation experience, with strong expertise in building scalable automation frameworks using Playwright with TypeScript.

This role requires a hands-on technical leader who can define automation standards, improve quality engineering practices, mentor engineers, and collaborate effectively with development, product, DevOps, and business teams.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, and maintenance of scalable test automation frameworks using Playwright and TypeScript.
• Define the overall automation strategy, architecture, coding standards, and implementation roadmap.
• Provide technical leadership for UI, API, integration, regression, smoke, and end-to-end automation.
• Identify opportunities to improve test coverage, execution speed, reliability, and maintainability.
• Integrate automated test suites into Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines.
• Review automation code and ensure adherence to engineering standards and best practices.
• Diagnose and resolve flaky tests, framework limitations, execution failures, and environment-related issues.
• Establish test-quality metrics, dashboards, reporting mechanisms, and release-readiness criteria.
• Collaborate with developers, product owners, architects, DevOps engineers, and other stakeholders.
• Drive shift-left testing and early defect detection across the software development lifecycle.
• Promote effective use of AI-assisted development tools, including GitHub Copilot, to improve engineering productivity and code quality.
• Evaluate emerging automation technologies and conduct proof-of-concept implementations where appropriate.
• Mentor automation engineers and support their technical and professional development.
• Communicate automation progress, quality risks, dependencies, and recommendations to technical and leadership teams.
• Support continuous improvement of engineering, testing, and release processes.
  
  

Required Qualifications

• Minimum 10 years of experience in software testing, quality engineering, and test automation.
• Proven experience working as a Test Automation Lead, Architect, Staff Engineer, or equivalent technical leadership role.
• Expert-level knowledge of Playwright automation with TypeScript.
• Strong experience designing and implementing enterprise-grade automation frameworks.
• Expertise in Azure DevOps, including repositories, pipelines, test execution, reporting, dashboards, and work-item management.
• Hands-on experience with UI, API, integration, regression, and end-to-end testing.
• Strong understanding of test automation architecture, design patterns, reusable components, fixtures, test-data management, and reporting.
• Experience integrating automated tests with CI/CD pipelines.
• Practical experience using AI development tools such as GitHub Copilot for code generation, refactoring, test creation, and productivity improvement.
• Strong debugging, analytical, and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers and lead technical discussions.
• Ability to work effectively with cross-functional and geographically distributed teams.
  
  

Good-to-Have Skills

• Performance testing experience using Apache JMeter.
• Advanced knowledge of CI/CD concepts, pipeline design, and release automation.
• API automation experience using Playwright, REST-based libraries, or similar tools.
• Experience with Docker, cloud environments, SQL, and Linux.
• Familiarity with monitoring and observability tools such as Datadog.
• Experience modernizing or migrating legacy automation frameworks to Playwright.
• Knowledge of Agile/Scrum development methodologies.
  
  

Leadership Competencies

• Strong technical ownership and decision-making ability.
• Ability to influence engineering practices across multiple teams.
• Effective stakeholder management and risk communication.
• Commitment to mentoring and developing automation engineers.
• Continuous-improvement mindset with a focus on measurable outcomes.
• Ability to balance hands-on engineering responsibilities with strategic leadership.
  
  

Education

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related discipline.
• Equivalent professional experience may also be considered.
  
  

This position is not eligible for immigration sponsorship (e.g. H-1B, TN, or E-3). Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States as a condition of employment. (This is only applicable for US-based positions)

If you don't meet every qualification listed but are excited about our mission and the work described, we encourage you to apply. Inovalon is most interested in finding the best candidate for the job, and you may be just the right person for this or other roles.

By embracing inclusion, we enhance our work environment and drive business success. Inovalon strives to provide equal opportunities to the communities where we operate and to our clients and everyone whom we serve. We endeavor to create a culture of inclusion in which our associates feel empowered to bring their full, authentic selves to work and pursue their professional goals in an equitable setting. We understand that by fostering this type of culture, and welcoming different perspectives, we generate innovation and growth.

Inovalon is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or veteran status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirement.

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