Senior Associate

Role Overview:
We are looking for a hands-on Senior Associate to own and drive our end-to-end test automation strategy. The successful candidate will combine deep technical expertise in Java-based automation frameworks with strong stakeholder management skills. They will run the automation team, safeguard the health and relevance of our regression suite, and ensure that automation keeps pace with sprint deliveries and production learnings.
This is a dual-track role: roughly 70% technical and hands-on contribution, and 30% stakeholder engagement, and strategic planning.

Key Responsibilities
Technical & Hands-On Automation
• Architect, build, and maintain scalable automation frameworks using Java, Selenium WebDriver, Cucumber (BDD), and IntelliJ IDEA as the primary development environment.
• Stay current with emerging tools and practices in the test automation space (e.g. Rest Assured, Test Containers, AI-assisted testing tools) and evaluate their fit for the team.
• Conduct code reviews using AI for the automation team, enforce coding standards, and champion best practices in test design, reusability, and maintainability.
• Own the CI/CD integration of automation suites - ensuring tests run reliably as part of the pipeline (Jenkins / GitHub Actions / similar).
Automation Health & Suite Governance
• Monitor the health of automation checks daily - track flaky tests, failure trends, and execution times; drive a low and stable flake rate.
• Review the relevance of the regression pack on an ongoing basis. Retire obsolete checks, identify coverage gaps, and ensure the suite remains lean and meaningful.
• Define and report on key automation KPIs (pass rate, flake rate, coverage, mean time to triage) to the stakeholders.
Sprint & Production Alignment
• Partner with Product, Development, and Functional QA during sprint planning and grooming to identify sprint items that require automation coverage.
• Ensure timely automation of new features within the same sprint or the immediately following sprint, as per the team’s definition of done.
• Track production incidents and escaped defects and ensure that each one is reviewed for automation coverage, so the same issue is caught earlier next time.
• Plan capacity and allocate work across the team based on sprint priorities.
• Foster a culture of ownership, continuous improvement, and knowledge sharing within the team.
Stakeholder Management
• Act as the single point of contact for automation across Engineering, Product, Release Management, and Business stakeholders.
• Communicate proactively on automation status, risks, and blockers — translating technical detail into clear business impact.
• Manage expectations around coverage, and trade-offs, influence priorities through data and evidence rather than authority alone.
Required Skills & Experience
Must-Have Technical Skills
• Strong, hands-on experience with Java (8+ preferred) for test automation development.
• Deep expertise in Selenium WebDriver, including handling complex UI scenarios, waits, and cross-browser execution.
• Proven experience designing and scaling BDD frameworks using Cucumber (Gherkin).
• Proficiency with IntelliJ IDEA as the primary IDE, including debugging and refactoring at scale.
• Solid experience with build tools (Maven / Gradle) and version control (Git).
• Experience integrating automation suites into CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or similar).
• Working knowledge of API automation (Rest Assured, Postman, or equivalent).
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• Familiarity with modern and emerging automation tools (e.g., Playwright, Cypress, AI/LLM-assisted testing tools) and the judgement to know when to adopt them.
• Strong grounding in OOP fundamentals and SOLID principles in Java, with the ability to write clean, extensible, well-structured automation code.
• Hands-on experience applying test design patterns (Page Object Model, Factory, Singleton, Builder) to build maintainable, reusable frameworks.
• Working experience with test runners such as TestNG or JUnit, including data providers, listeners, retry mechanisms, and parallel execution.
• Experience scaling test execution through parallel and distributed runs — Container based execution using selenoid.
• Implementation of any AI use case that translates to efficiency gain.
Must-Have Domain Knowledge
• Working knowledge of the capital markets domain – trading lifecycle, order management, post-trade workflows, or related front-to-back functional areas.
Must-Have Soft Skills
• Excellent stakeholder management — comfortable presenting to the stakeholders and influencing cross-functional teams.
• Strong written and verbal communication; can explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences.
• Strong sense of ownership and accountability for quality outcomes, not just test execution.
• Ability to define and drive an automation roadmap aligned to business and engineering priorities, with a clear point of view on what to automate, when, and why.
• AI-first mindset – actively looks for ways to apply AI across the automation lifecycle to improve efficiency, quality, and coverage, and encourages the team to do the same.
Nice to Have
• Prior experience in investment banking domain is a plus.