IT QA Test Eng Sr (Automation Engineer)

Job Description:

IT QA Test Eng Sr (Automation Engineer)

Description

JOIN THE CITY OF AUSTIN TEAM

At the City of Austin, we are more than just an employer-we are a vibrant community dedicated to shaping one of the nation's most dynamic and innovative cities. As we strive to fulfill our commitment as public servants, it is important that we ground our efforts in a set of guiding principles - Empathy, Ethics, Excellence, Engagement, and Equity - anchors in delivering services that significantly impact the lives of Austinites. Joining the City of Austin means embarking on a purposeful career, contributing to the community, and being part of a forward-thinking organization that values every employee.

What Makes the City of Austin Special?

• Make a Difference : Join a team driving meaningful change in one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation.
  
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By joining us, you become part of a community that values its people and is committed to making Austin the most thriving and resilient city in the country.

Job Description:

IT Quality Assurance/Test Engineer Senior

Purpose:

IT Quality Assurance (QA)/Test Engineer Seniors are responsible for verifying and validating if services, products, and solutions meet specified requirements through implementing quality assurance objectives and processes and monitoring and evaluating testing results against the predetermined objectives. This position leads the planning, creation, execution, and automation of test cases and works with City departments, developers, and other stakeholders to inform and improve processes.

Duties, Functions and Responsibilities:

Essential duties and functions, pursuant to the Americans with Disabilities Act, may include the following. Other related duties may be assigned.

• Contributes to testing strategy and architecture.
• Leads teams in support of testing strategies and activities.
• Develops automation framework and tools to aid testing, operations, and maintenance of the data warehouse.
• Writes and executes test plans, designs and develops test tools, debugs and reports code bugs, and pushes quality upstream.
• Measures performance of various components (using simulated stress tests) and reports any outliers/exceptions.
• Leads set up of multiple QA environments to work with fabricated source data, QA source data, and production source data.
• Interprets testing needs as requirements are being developed.
• Evaluates testability of business and technical requirements based on business/functional requirement document(s), use cases, user stories, and/or solution design documents.
• Participates in requirement/design reviews or sprint/release planning sessions.
• Designs impact assessment and performs impact analysis on changes to existing architecture, work processes, and systems.
• Participates in architecture and technical specification review and provides feedback on content and testability.
• Creates test plans.
• Sets up and maintains test environments for both manual and automated testing.

Responsibilities - Supervisor and/or Leadership Exercised:

May provide leadership, work assignments, evaluation, training, and guidance to others.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

Must possess required knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience and be able to explain and demonstrate, with or without reasonable accommodations, that the essential functions of the job can be performed.

• Knowledge of different types of testing (e.g., functional, performance, and other nonfunctional tests).
• Knowledge of coding practices, concepts and design patterns to create maintainable test frameworks.
• Knowledge of DRY principles (remove and deter the creation of repeating code) and SOLID principles (object-oriented principles to create decoupled, clean code) to create, review and refactor code.
• Knowledge of SLAs, audit, and governing body policies.
• Knowledge of testing frameworks and tools and test automation frameworks.
• Knowledge of types of database structures, types of relationships in a database and types of DBMSs, NoSQL/non-relational databases, and CRUD operations.
• Knowledge of APIs design, use, and maintenance.
• Knowledge of cloud networking capabilities, VPNs, and firewall composition.
• Knowledge of automation of CI/CD infrastructure, and tools, languages, and file formats that will inform tooling decisions in the testing strategy.
• Knowledge of components and orchestration of containerization, tools and methods used for containerization, and how they integrate with testing tools and frameworks.
• Skill in leading testing strategy, functional and non-functional testing, automated testing, quality assurance and performance testing.
• Skill in software development and chaos engineering.
• Ability to collaborate with diverse roles throughout the organization to develop holistic testing strategies and select frameworks.
• Ability to frequently and incrementally deliver applications with high quality and to created effective and meaningful tests by understanding needs of stakeholders.
• Ability to report KPIs and metrics.
• Ability to create, generate and maintain test data and databases and to creatively troubleshoot problems.
• Ability to work with cross functional teams and rapidly acquire new information and skills.
• Ability to adhere to required compliance to all change management policies and procedures.
• Ability to adhere to required compliance to all information security policies and procedures.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Graduation with a Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university with major course work in a field related to the job plus two (2) years experience.
• Experience may substitute for education up to four (4) years.

Licenses and Certifications Required:

None.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Extensive experience using Java, C++, and python.
• Extensive experience working automation and performance tools like Selenium and IBM RPT.
• Experience in writing code for testing applications and developing test automation frameworks. Strong background in software testing.
• Experience in System Architecture (SW, HW and Enterprise) and Web technologies.
• Experience supporting the business of an Electric Utility or Water Utility.
• Experience leading test status and results meetings.
• Experience working with: CC&B, StormCenter, Service Now, Maximo.
• Extensive experience with Test Management tools.
• Ability to travel to more than one work location.

Notes to Candidate:

Austin Energy (AE) seeks a highly skilled IT QA Automation Engineer in the Business Operations Liaison Team (BOLT) work group. This position is a member of the Service Validation & Testing (SVT) team supporting Tech and Data's Quality Assurance program. This position will report to the Testing/QA IT Manager in the Tech and Data Business Operations Liaison Team (BOLT) group. This position requires excellent knowledge of different programming languages, object-oriented design, analysis, concepts and the ability to solve problems in coding and testing, for automation and performance testing. Key responsibilities include identifying opportunities for automation, writing complex frameworks and scripts to validate software functionality, and performing root cause analysis on system defects.

This position will need a solid background in manual testing, creating and executing test plans, documenting test scripts from requirements, executing tests, and documenting variances for new large enterprise applications being deployed as well as existing enterprise applications being enhanced. This position requires working in a deadline, while balancing multiple projects and changing priorities providing support to various Tech and Data groups, project stakeholders and business groups.

Pay Range: Entry: $80,490.00 - $102,200.00 USD annually

Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (40-hour work week). Additional work hours may be required to support 24-hour Utility operations, including evenings, weekends, holidays, inclement weather, and emergency closures.

Location: 4815 Mueller Blvd, 78723

IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

Working with Austin Energy provides a number of health and welfare benefits such as low-cost medical, dental, vision, paid leave time, a highly competitive retirement plan, career development opportunities and more. Please click HERE for more information. Please be aware that the Job Posting Close Date reflects the final day to apply, but the posting will close at 11:59 PM the day before the date listed. All application steps, including attachments and submission, must be fully completed before that time. We also recommend that you save or print a copy of the job posting for your records. Once a posting has closed, it will no longer be viewable in the system.

DEPARTMENT MAY CLOSE THIS JOB POSTING AT ANY TIME AFTER 7 DAYS

WHEN COMPLETING THE CITY OF AUSTIN APPLICATION:

• The City of Austin employment application is an official document; incomplete applications will not be considered.
• Please be sure that your application is a reflection of your entire work history. A detailed and complete employment application is required to help us better evaluate your qualifications and will be used to determine salary if you are selected for this position.
• Describe your specific experience for each position. Include all job duties, responsibilities, and employment dates.
• Resumes will not be accepted. Statements such as “see resume” will not be accepted. You may use “N/A” for fields that are not applicable.
• Starting salary will be based on overall relevant experience from your employment application. • Supplemental information or changes to your application will not be accepted after the job posting closes.
• The responses to the supplemental questions should reference the employment history listed in the employment history section .
• Once the requisition has closed, the application cannot be changed to update work history, supplemental questions, or any other information.
• We reserve the right to verify high school and college education for the top candidate(s).

If you have any questions regarding your City of Austin employment application, please use the official website of the City of Austin as reference. www.austintexas.gov.

TRAVEL:

If you are selected for this position and meet the Driver Safety Standards in the City of Austin Driver Safety Program, you may drive when necessary to multiple locations as part of your regular job duties. Otherwise, you are responsible for getting to and from these locations.

WORK HOURS:

This position has been designated as critical for the City of Austin. Critical positions are necessary and vital and support activities that impact City or department operations. Work can be done while at a designated work site or while working at an alternate work location. Critical employees may be reassigned to another area to provide essential services to support any extraordinary situations or emergency conditions.

VETERAN INTERVIEW PREFERENCE:

Military/Veterans must provide a copy of their DD214 verifying honorable discharge, at the time of initial interview to receive military/veteran interview preference.

CRIMINAL HISTORY BACKGROUND CHECK:

This position requires a criminal background investigation and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) clearance.

FAIR LABOR STANDARDS ACT:

This position is classified as EXEMPT and may require working additional hours outside of the normal schedule to include nights, weekends, and /or holiday

EEO Statement for City of Austin:

The City of Austin will not discriminate against any applicant or employee based on race, creed, color, national origin, sex, gender identity, age, religion, veteran status, disability, or sexual orientation. In addition, the City will not discriminate in employment decisions on the basis of an individual's AIDS, AIDS Related Complex, or HIV status; nor will the City discriminate against individuals who are perceived to be at risk of HIV infection, or who associate with individuals who are believed to be at risk.

City of Austin is committed to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. If you require reasonable accommodation during the application process or have a question regarding an essential job function, please call (512) 974-3210 or Texas Relay by dialing 7-1-1.

Closing Date/Time: 2026-03-20