Quality Engineering Lead / Automation Architect

POMS develops Manufacturing Execution System (MES) software solutions for the life sciences industry. POMS is investing heavily in automated quality engineering, modern software delivery practices, and AI-assisted testing to further product quality and accelerate delivery.

Position Summary

POMS is seeking a hands-on Quality Engineering Lead / Automation Architect to lead the shift from predominantly manual testing to automation-driven quality engineering. This is a hands-on role: the successful candidate will personally help enhance the automation foundation (Playwright framework, standards, and CI/CD integration) and lead a global QA team to deliver automation at scale, using data to measure outcomes and prioritize investments.

Key Responsibilities

• Automation Strategy and Architecture
  • Own POMS' test automation strategy and roadmap, serving as technical lead for the Playwright framework, automation standards, coding guidelines, and review practices.
  • Design and build scalable Playwright suites in TypeScript, making effective use of fixtures, workers, parallelization, test isolation, retries, traces, and reporting.
  • Organize workflow-based testing suites with clear smoke, core regression, and release regression layers across functional, API, integration, and end-to-end testing.
  • Assess the existing manual test inventory and prioritize which tests should be automated, redesigned, consolidated, kept manual, or retired.
  • Partner with Development and DevOps to enhance our automated regression pipelines (Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or similar), with sound environment, test-data, and parallel-execution strategies across TFVC and Git repositories.
  • Apply AI-assisted tools to test generation, maintenance, coverage analysis, and defect identification, and evaluate emerging testing tools and practices.
• Team Leadership
  • Build, mentor, and develop a small, high-performing QA team, with particular responsibility for building automation capability.
  • Put in place the standards, coaching, delegation, and ownership models that allow the team to scale automation without relying on the lead to author most tests.
  • Set goals, performance expectations, and career development plans, and support hiring, onboarding, and succession planning.
  • Foster quality ownership, accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Quality and Release Management
  • Champion shift-left and risk-based testing, and participate in requirements, design, and architecture reviews to identify risks early.
  • Define data-driven release readiness criteria and quality gates, and own QA for all software releases.
  • Build operational and executive dashboards and KPIs covering automation coverage, defect escape rates, release readiness, and team performance, and use them to prioritize investments.
  • Lead root cause analysis of escaped defects and implement preventive improvements.
  • Support validation and compliance activities within a regulated software environment.

Qualifications

• Required Qualifications
  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
  • 5+ years of software quality assurance and testing experience.
  • Expert-level experience building enterprise-scale test automation frameworks using Playwright, Selenium, Cypress, or comparable tools, with strong TypeScript or JavaScript skills.
  • Strong software engineering skills, preferably in TypeScript and JavaScript, including Git, API testing, SQL, debugging, and code review.
  • Experience integrating automated regression testing into CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or comparable platforms.
  • Experience scaling automation capability through coaching, standards, and delegation.
  • Proven use of quality metrics, dashboards, and KPIs to drive decisions and outcomes.
  • Experience testing complex web-based enterprise applications in Agile environments.
  • Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, and excellent verbal and written communication.
• Preferred Qualifications
  • Hands-on experience building substantial Playwright suites in TypeScript (fixtures, workers, parallelization, test isolation, retries, traces).
  • Experience leading QA teams or large-scale testing initiatives.
  • Experience in regulated industries such as life sciences, pharmaceutical manufacturing, healthcare, or medical devices, including GxP and 21 CFR Part 11.
  • Experience working across mixed TFVC and Git environments, including migration to Git.
  • Demonstrated success transforming a predominantly manual QA organization into an automation-heavy one.
  • Experience using AI or machine learning to improve testing efficiency and effectiveness.
  • Knowledge of performance and security testing methodologies.

Success Measures

• Establish a baseline quality scorecard and show measurable KPI gains within 12 months.
• Increase automated coverage of core and critical product areas.
• Deliver reliable, fast, and maintainable automated regression running on every build.
• Enable the QA team to produce automation at scale against consistent standards.
• Detect defects earlier in the lifecycle and improve release confidence.