What are the responsibilities and job description for the Test Automation Engineer (SDET) - Washington, DC position at Digital Technology Solutions?
DTS is looking for experienced Test Automation Engineer (SDET) for our Client position based in Washington, DC
Primary Focus:
- Elections distribution systems
- API testing
- Automation
- Risk-based quality coverage
Top Must-Have Skills
- Strong hands-on experience with Playwright and TypeScript for test automation.
- Strong API testing and automation experience using Rest Assured.
- Working knowledge of AWS, especially analyzing CloudWatch logs.
- Strong experience with XML and JSON schema validation.
Top Nice-to-Have Skills
- Institutional knowledge of U.S. elections workflows, terminology, race results, vote types, and distribution risks.
- Python scripting experience for utilities, validation, or test data support.
- Experience using boto3 for AWS automation or log/data validation.
- Experience with AI-led test automation for test design, automation acceleration, and impact analysis.
- Experience testing high-visibility, time-sensitive, production-critical systems.
- Prior experience in media, publishing, news, elections, or real-time distribution platforms.
Role Summary
- We are looking for a hands-on SDET to support election-critical systems through the November elections cycle.
- This person will work closely with the current Elections QA Lead and help offload testing and automation work, especially on the distribution side of the platform.
- The role requires strong automation, API testing, AWS observability, and backend validation experience.
- The person must have practical knowledge of U.S. elections and understand the risks associated with election result distribution.
- This is not a pure automation role; the person must be able to clarify requirements, challenge gaps, assess production risk, and help improve QE processes.
- The ideal candidate should be comfortable working in a fast-paced Agile environment while maintaining quality discipline.
- The person should be able to communicate testing progress, automation value, risks, and quality improvements to stakeholders.
Required Skills
- Strong hands-on experience with Playwright for UI and API automation.
- Strong coding and scripting experience using TypeScript.
- Hands-on API automation experience using Rest Assured.
- Strong experience testing REST APIs, including:
- Request and response validation
- Status code validation
- Header validation
- Error handling validation
- Negative testing
- Contract testing
- Data integrity testing
- Must have experience with XML and JSON schema validation.
- Ability to design test scenarios based on API specification documentation.
- Experience writing BDD-style test scenarios and acceptance criteria.
- Working knowledge of AWS, especially for test validation and production behavior analysis.
- Ability to analyze CloudWatch logs to determine API usage patterns, failure trends, and missing test coverage.
- Experience converting production usage patterns into meaningful automated test coverage.
- Experience working with MongoDB collections for backend data validation.
- Hands-on experience with Jira and Zephyr for test case management, defect tracking, test execution, and traceability.
- Strong understanding of risk-based testing and the ability to prioritize coverage based on production and business impact.
- Experience working in a highly Agile environment with fast-moving delivery teams.
- Ability to push back professionally when the team deviates from agreed process, quality gates, or acceptance criteria.
- Strong stakeholder communication skills.
- Ability to work with product owners, developers, QA leads, and business stakeholders to clarify requirements and acceptance criteria.
- Institutional knowledge of U.S. elections is a must, including:
- Election results workflows
- Race-level data
- Vote updates
- Vote types
- Race calls
- Result distribution
- Downstream consumer impact
- Election-night risk areas
Good-to-Have Skills
- Python scripting experience for test utilities, data validation, log analysis, or automation support.
- Experience with boto3 for AWS-based automation or validation.
- Experience with AI-led test automation tools or frameworks.
- Experience using AI to support:
- Test scenario generation
- Automation script generation
- Regression impact analysis
- Test coverage recommendations
- Experience testing media, publishing, news, or real-time data distribution platforms.
- Experience supporting production-critical systems during high-visibility events.
- Experience with release readiness reviews, defect triage, and go/no-go decisions.
- Experience with observability-driven testing, where production logs and usage data are used to improve test coverage.
- Experience participating in or facilitating blameless postmortems.
- Experience communicating automation ROI and quality value to technical and business stakeholders.
Desired Profile
- The ideal candidate should be more than a test automation engineer; they should operate like a quality engineer who understands production risk.
- The person should be able to work closely with the Elections QA Lead and take ownership of assigned distribution-side testing workstreams.
- The person should help reduce the workload on the current lead by independently handling automation, API validation, log analysis, and test coverage expansion.
- The person should be able to identify high-risk workflows and prioritize testing based on business and production impact.
- The person should review requirements critically and not simply test what is written in the ticket.
- The person should proactively work with stakeholders to clarify unclear requirements, missing acceptance criteria, and edge cases.
- The person should use CloudWatch logs to understand real API usage patterns and add tests where coverage gaps exist.
- The person should bring practical QE process improvements to reduce production misses wherever possible.
- The person should help improve test coverage across API, backend, data validation, schema validation, and distribution workflows.
- The person should be comfortable pushing back respectfully when process shortcuts create quality or production risk.
- The person should be able to communicate risks clearly without creating noise or unnecessary escalation.
- The person should be able to show value to stakeholders by broadcasting automation improvements, risk reduction, coverage gains, and ROI.
- The person should participate in blameless postmortems and help convert findings into preventive actions.
- The person should be comfortable working under election-cycle pressure without cutting corners on quality.
- The person should bring a continuous improvement mindset and help strengthen the QE process.
DTS offers excellent compensation package.
Contact :
Ajay Bharbutta
Ajay Bharbutta
Team Lead
Digital Technology Solutions (DTS)