Senior Automation Quality Analyst Engineer

Role Purpose:

WPP is undergoing an exciting global transformation, and we are seeking an experienced and detail-oriented Senior Automation Quality Analyst, specialising in Playwright, to join our Central QA team. In this senior role you will lead the automation of our regression and end-to-end test suites, set the standard for test quality across the team, and act as a go-to technical reference for other QA engineers.You will be instrumental in sustaining the reliability of our platform under a trunk-based, continuously delivered way of working, where quality has to be built in early rather than inspected at the end. Beyond strong automation fundamentals, we are looking for someone attuned to modern, AI-assisted ways of working — using AI tooling to accelerate test design, authoring and analysis without compromising rigour. This is a senior position with a clear path towards a QA Lead role for the right person. We encourage applications from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences.

Key Responsibilities:

As a Senior Automation Quality Analyst, you will:

Automation and test engineering

• Lead the design, build and maintenance of automated end-to-end and regression suites using Playwright with TypeScript/JavaScript.
• Analyse business requirements and translate them into robust, maintainable test cases and automation coverage.
• Perform formal and exploratory testing; execute and review both automated and manual test cases.
• Identify, document and track defects, providing clear and concise descriptions that allow developers to reproduce and resolve issues efficiently.
• Conduct regression testing to verify that resolved issues do not affect existing functionality.

Continuous delivery and the merge gate

• Embed testing into the CI/CD pipeline, keeping the merge gate reliable and the nightly regression green.
• Use AI tooling to accelerate test authoring, data creation and defect analysis, applying sound judgement to validate AI-assisted output.
• Collaborate with developers to identify the root cause of issues, and with SRE and DevOps to keep test environments and test data stable.
• Lead testing activities during sprints and releases.
• Communicate complex issues clearly to both business and technical stakeholders, and report test results.
• Define and apply the criteria for what belongs in the merge gate versus the nightly suite, keeping gate suites within an agreed time budget so they give fast, trustworthy feedback.
• Own test stability — triage flaky tests, apply the quarantine policy, and drive fixes so confidence in automated results is maintained.
• Design test coverage appropriate to each environment as code progresses from integration through to pre-production and performance environments.
• Provide test evidence to support release readiness and the Go/No-Go decision.

Standards, mentoring and hand-over

• Set and uphold automation standards; review other engineers' test cases and automated tests and mentor QA engineers on good practice.
• Stabilise test suites and hand them over to POD teams, supporting developers in maintaining them once ownership transfers.
• Work across multiple POD teams and codebases, adapting to differing priorities while keeping a consistent quality bar.
• Participate in design and requirement reviews, providing input on testability and quality risks.
• Contribute to the continuous improvement of QA processes and methodologies, and keep current with industry trends and best practice.

Collaboration and communication

• Use AI tooling to accelerate test authoring, data creation and defect analysis, applying sound judgement to validate AI-assisted output.
• Collaborate with developers to identify the root cause of issues, and with SRE and DevOps to keep test environments and test data stable.
• Lead testing activities during sprints and releases.
• Communicate complex issues clearly to both business and technical stakeholders, and report test results.
• Support investigation of production incidents where test coverage or quality is a contributing factor.

Skill Requirements:

We understand that candidates may not have every skill listed below. We encourage you to apply if you have a strong automation foundation and the drive to lead and grow.

• 6–8 years' proven experience as an automation QA or test engineer, with a track record of owning automation on complex web applications.
• Strong, hands-on expertise in Playwright with TypeScript — designing and maintaining automation frameworks from the ground up.
• Solid understanding of software testing methodologies, tools and processes, of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), and of trunk-based and continuous delivery workflows.
• Proficiency with GitHub and CI/CD tooling (GitHub Actions and/or GitLab CI) to run tests as part of the pipeline.
• Experience with API testing (Postman or similar).
• Experience with bug tracking and test management tools (e.g. Jira, TestRail).
• Familiarity with AI-assisted development and testing — practical use of AI tooling to improve the speed and quality of QA work.
• Proven ability to lead testing activities during sprint and release, and to mentor other QA engineers.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a keen eye for identifying issues and inconsistencies.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to influence without direct authority.
• Ability to manage multiple tasks and priorities across teams in a fast-paced environment.
• A bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology or a related field is preferred.

Desirable experience

• Experience stabilizing large end-to-end regression suites and driving down automation debt.
• Exposure to performance testing concepts and reliability engineering practices.
• Familiarity with basic SQL queries for database validation.
• Exposure to working with Python.