Senior Software Engineer(QA Testing & Automation)

Career Area:

Job Description:

Your Work Shapes the World at Caterpillar Inc.

When you join Caterpillar, you're joining a global team who cares not just about the work we do – but also about each other.  We are the makers, problem solvers, and future world builders who are creating stronger, more sustainable communities. We don't just talk about progress and innovation here – we make it happen, with our customers, where we work and live. Together, we are building a better world, so we can all enjoy living in it.

QA Testing & Automation Senior Engineer to lead the quality engineering strategy, drive automation maturity, and mentor a team of QA engineers. Own the end-to-end test automation architecture across UI, API, and data layers while actively contributing to hands-on development of test solutions.

Leadership & Strategy

Define and own the QA automation strategy and roadmap across all product streams and release cycles

Establish framework architecture standards, design patterns (POM, Factory, Strategy), and coding conventions across all automation projects

Drive a shift-left testing culture by embedding QA activities into sprint planning, refinement, and design reviews

Set and enforce quality gates in CI/CD pipelines — no merge without passing smoke and regression suites

Report test coverage, defect escape rates, automation ROI, and quality KPIs to engineering leadership and stakeholders

Own release readiness decisions in collaboration with Engineering Managers, Product Owners, and Architects

Lead technical interviews and assess candidates for QA automation positions

Team Management & Mentoring

Lead, mentor, and upskill a team of QA engineers across Playwright, Selenium, API, and data validation disciplines

Conduct regular 1:1s, set measurable performance goals, and deliver structured feedback

Identify skill gaps across the team and create targeted development plans

Facilitate internal knowledge-sharing sessions, brown bags, and hands-on workshops on tooling and best practices

Resolve sprint blockers for the team and escalate risks to delivery management proactively

Playwright — React App UI Testing

Architect and own the Playwright (TypeScript) framework end-to-end for React SPA coverage

Design reusable Page Object Models, test fixtures, custom reporters, and shared utility layers

Define coverage standards across component-level, integration, and full E2E scenarios for React routes, state transitions, and dynamic rendering

Implement API mocking via page.route() for isolated, deterministic UI test scenarios

Configure parallel execution, browser sharding, and multi-browser matrix (Chromium, Firefox, WebKit)

Integrate Playwright runs into CI pipelines with artifact retention, HTML report publishing, and failure screenshot capture

Establish and govern visual regression testing baselines and define triage and sign-off processes for visual failures

Define retry policies, flakiness thresholds, and quarantine procedures for unstable tests

Selenium + Java + BDD (Cucumber)

Govern the Selenium WebDriver + Cucumber framework architecture, dependency versioning, and upgrade strategy

Collaborate with BAs and Product Owners to review and approve Gherkin feature files prior to sprint execution

Implement and maintain step definitions, hooks (@Before, @After), and shared scenario context/state management

Enforce a structured tagging strategy (@smoke, @regression, @sanity, @critical) for selective pipeline execution

Manage cross-browser execution strategy

Ensure Cucumber execution results are published to Azdo for requirement traceability and audit compliance

Define and enforce fluent wait strategies and element interaction standards to reduce test brittleness

Own flaky test triage — identify root causes, quarantine, and drive resolution with dev teams

API Testing — REST Assured

Design and own the REST Assured (Java) API framework with a layered architecture: service layer, model layer, utility layer

Define standards for contract testing, JSON Schema validation, response time assertions, and negative scenario coverage

Implement authentication handling strategies across OAuth2, Bearer token refresh flows, and API key injection patterns

Build reusable request builders and response extractors to support chained API test scenarios (token extraction → dependent calls)

Collaborate with backend engineers to validate live API behavior against OpenAPI/Swagger specifications

Parameterize tests using TestNG data providers or Cucumber Examples tables for data-driven coverage

Integrate API test suites as mandatory PR and release pipeline gates with pass/fail status reporting

SQL — Data Validation

Lead the strategy for database-level assertions using JDBC utility layers callable from both UI and API test frameworks

Write and review complex SQL queries for post-transaction validation — record counts, field-level checks, referential integrity, and audit log verification

Design reusable DB helper classes that integrate cleanly into Cucumber step definitions and REST Assured test flows

Validate ETL pipeline outputs, data migrations, and cross-service data synchronization operations

Coordinate with DBAs to track schema changes and proactively update affected test assertions before releases

Define and maintain test data seeding and teardown scripts to ensure isolated, repeatable test runs

General QA Ownership

Own test plan and test strategy documents for each release cycle and major feature delivery

Chair defect triage meetings and enforce resolution SLAs by severity across squads

Manage test environment coordination with DevOps — environment configs, test data pipelines, and seed scripts

Systematically identify and eliminate flaky tests to maintain a trustworthy CI signal

Embed accessibility (WCAG) and security-aware test cases (OWASP Top 10 awareness) into standard QA workflows

Contribute QA insights to incident and drive preventive test coverage from production escapes

Posting Dates:

Caterpillar is an Equal Opportunity Employer.  Qualified applicants of any age are encouraged to apply

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