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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Senior Quality & Automation Engineer - **Company:** KIRA, Inc. - **Location:** San Francisco, CA, United States (Remote available) - **Experience:** Expert - **Salary:** $150,000.0 - $190,000.0 - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** JavaScript (Programming Language), Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Artificial Intelligence, Amazon Web Services, Application Performance Management, Application Services, Automation of Tests, Cloud Computing, Databases, Continuous Integration, Software Debugging, Distributed Systems, Fault Tolerance, Apache JMeter, Junit, Load Testing, Regression Testing, Next.js, Test Data, Cloud Platform System, ReactJS, Large Language Models, Spring-boot, Cypress (Programming Language), Gatling, Caching, Backend, Fastapi, Kotlin, Pytest, AI Platforms, Playwright, Front End Software Development, Dynatrace, SDET - **Published:** July 31, 2026 - **Apply:** https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=f11f48bfea9763e1 ## About the Role * 6+ years of experience in quality engineering, test automation, or SDET roles * Strong experience with modern testing frameworks such as Playwright, Cypress, Jest, JUnit, or PyTest * Experience building and maintaining automated end-to-end test suites in CI/CD environments * Hands-on experience with performance and load testing tools such as k6, Artillery, Gatling, JMeter, or Locust * Experience designing representative workload models and interpreting latency percentiles, throughput, concurrency, error rates, and resource saturation * Ability to distinguish genuine application bottlenecks from limitations or unrealistic behavior in the test harness, test data, or load-generation infrastructure * Familiarity with testing distributed systems, APIs, and database-backed applications * Experience working in cloud environments, ideally AWS * Strong debugging skills and the ability to trace issues across multiple layers of a system. Our stack includes Next.js and React frontends, Kotlin and Java Spring Boot backends, Python FastAPI AI services, and LangSmith agent workflows * Experience defining or improving QA processes in a fast-paced startup environment * Comfort evaluating and integrating AI tools into test automation and quality workflows * Practical judgment about when to automate, when to test manually, and when to push back * Clear communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences * Comfort operating in a fast-moving, high-ownership environment with changing priorities * High attention to detail and strong product intuition Nice to Have * Experience testing AI- or LLM-backed features, including evaluating nondeterministic outputs, prompt regression testing, latency budgets, and graceful degradation when model providers experience issues * Experience using application performance monitoring, distributed tracing, logs, and cloud infrastructure metrics to identify system bottlenecks * Experience building internal tooling that improves developer velocity ## Description * Ensure a high-quality, reliable experience for teachers and students across web, API, and AI-driven workflows * Define and evolve our quality strategy across frontend, backend, and AI services * Design and implement scalable automated testing across end-to-end, integration, regression, and performance layers * Own performance and load testing for critical workflows, including login surges, classroom activity, assignment submissions, real-time features, and AI services * Build realistic workload models from production usage patterns, establish performance baselines and capacity targets, and validate that the platform can handle expected traffic before critical launches and peak usage periods * Diagnose performance bottlenecks across test infrastructure, networks, application services, caches, databases, and third-party dependencies, then partner with engineering teams on remediation * Evaluate and adopt modern AI-powered tools to accelerate test generation, maintenance, debugging, and coverage * Partner closely with product and engineering to define clear acceptance criteria and prevent defects early in the development process * Improve release confidence through stronger CI/CD integration, test observability, and failure diagnostics * Establish pragmatic quality gates that improve reliability without unnecessarily slowing product velocity * Lead post-incident quality improvements and help prevent regressions * Contribute to documentation and runbooks that improve operational excellence * Mentor engineers on writing effective, maintainable tests and building testable systems, * Fewer high-severity bugs reaching production * Greater automated coverage of critical product workflows * Repeatable performance tests that identify scaling risks before they affect teachers and students * Clear performance baselines and capacity expectations for peak usage periods * Faster, more confident releases * Quality standards that engineers respect rather than bypass * AI-assisted QA processes that meaningfully reduce manual effort, Kira will make a conditional job offer in line with local, state and federal laws, and a subsequent criminal, education, and employment history background check will then be issued. ## Related Videos - [Hiring AI Native Talents](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100268-hiring-ai-native-talents) - [pytest: Simple, rapid and fun testing with Python](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/213-pytest-simple-rapid-and-fun-testing-with-python) - [How Unit Testing Saved My Career](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1642-how-unit-testing-saved-my-career) - [Automagic Configuration in Python](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/363-automagic-configuration-in-python) - [From boy scouting to redrawing the landscape](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1140-from-boy-scouting-to-redrawing-the-landscape) - [Let’s Talk Quality!](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100012-let-s-talk-quality) ## Related Articles - [Dev Digest 120 - Apple and peers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/455-dev-digest-120-apple-and-peers) - [Dev Digest 121 - AI goes offline](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/456-dev-digest-121-ai-goes-offline) - [Navigating the AI Shift](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/629-navigating-the-ai-shift) - [Highest Paying Tech Companies for Developers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/220-highest-paying-tech-companies-for-developers) - [Dev Digest 137 - AI'm not sure about this](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/485-dev-digest-137-ai-m-not-sure-about-this) - [13 AI Tools for Developers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/302-13-ai-tools-for-developers)