Lead SQA Automation Analyst

About the role

POMS, a manufacturer of manufacturing execution systems (MES) for regulated industries, is seeking a hands-on Quality Engineering Lead / Automation Architect to lead the shift from predominantly manual testing to automation-driven quality engineering. The role works from Contour Software's Karachi office as an extension of the division's R&D team. The person will personally help build the automation foundation (Playwright framework, standards and CI/CD integration) and lead a global QA team to deliver automation at scale.

Key responsibilities

• Own the test automation strategy and roadmap, acting as technical lead for the Playwright framework, automation standards, coding guidelines and review practices.
• Design and build scalable Playwright suites in TypeScript, and organize workflow-based suites with smoke, core regression and release regression layers across functional, API, integration and end-to-end testing.
• Assess the manual test inventory and prioritize which tests to automate, redesign, consolidate, keep manual or retire.
• Partner with Development and DevOps to improve automated regression pipelines (Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins or similar) and apply AI-assisted tools to test generation, maintenance, coverage analysis and defect identification, while governing AI use in testing.
• Maintain framework health by fixing flaky tests, technical debt and duplicated automation, and manage upgrades and migrations.
• Build, mentor and develop a small QA team, setting standards, coaching, delegation and ownership models, and supporting hiring, onboarding and succession planning.
• Define data-driven release readiness criteria and quality gates, build dashboards and KPIs on automation coverage, test reliability, defect escape rates and team performance, and lead root cause analysis of escaped defects.
• Support validation and compliance activities in a regulated software environment.

Required profile

• 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 with Playwright, Selenium, Cypress or comparable tools, and strong TypeScript or JavaScript skills.
• Experience scaling automation through coaching, standards and delegation, and a track record of moving a mostly manual QA organization toward automation.
• Proven use of quality metrics, dashboards and KPIs to drive decisions.
• Preferred: experience leading QA teams, regulated industries (life sciences, pharmaceuticals, medical devices) with GxP and 21 CFR Part 11, and mixed TFVC and Git environments.

Required skills

• Strong software engineering skills in TypeScript and JavaScript, including Git, API testing (Postman/Newman or REST Assured), SQL, debugging and code review.
• Automation design patterns: Page Object Model, reusable components, modular architecture, data-driven testing and BDD.
• CI/CD integration with Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions or Jenkins.
• Experience testing complex web-based enterprise applications in Agile environments.