IND Senior Staff Associate /Engineer SDET

We’re determined to make a difference and are proud to be an insurance company that goes well beyond coverages and policies. Working here means having every opportunity to achieve your goals – and to help others accomplish theirs, too. Join our team as we help shape the future.

Position Overview

The Hartford is seeking an experienced SDET Technical Lead to lead quality engineering and test automation for enterprise-scale applications. This is a hands-on leadership role responsible for guiding a team of 7-10 SDETs, defining the automation strategy, establishing engineering best practices, and embedding quality throughout the software development lifecycle.

The ideal candidate will bring deep expertise in Playwright-based UI automation, API testing, modern programming practices, and CI/CD integration. This individual will own quality outcomes—not merely test execution—and partner with product, engineering, architecture, and business teams to improve release confidence, speed-to-market, customer experience, and production stability.

Key Responsibilities:

Automation Strategy and Architecture

• Define and implement an enterprise-grade test automation strategy across UI, API, integration, and end-to-end testing.
• Architect scalable and reusable automation frameworks using Playwright with TypeScript or JavaScript.
• Establish framework standards for modularity, maintainability, parallel execution, cross-browser testing, reporting, and failure diagnostics.
• Guide the appropriate use of unit, component, API, contract, integration, UI, and end-to-end.
• Reduce dependence on manual regression through risk-based, sustainable automation.

Quality Engineering and Shift-Left Practices

• Drive shift-left quality by influencing requirements, acceptance criteria, solution designs, and testability.
• Define the overall test approach, quality gates, automation coverage targets, and release-readiness criteria.
• Champion test-driven development, behavior-driven development, API-first testing, and early defect prevention.
• Collaborate with product owners and business analysts to create clear, testable acceptance criteria.

Code Quality and Engineering Standards

• Conduct automation design and code reviews and ensure adherence to programming, security, and maintainability standards.
• Establish reusable libraries, coding guidelines, test patterns, branching practices, and Definition of Done.
• Ensure automated tests are reliable, independent, maintainable, and resistant to flaky execution.
• Implement effective test reporting, failure analysis, defect triage, and root-cause analysis practices.

CI/CD, Cloud and Non-Functional Quality

• Integrate automated test suites into CI/CD pipelines to provide fast and actionable feedback.
• Enable parallel, cross-browser, environment-based, and scheduled test execution.
• Partner with DevOps and platform teams to improve test environment availability, test data provisioning, and pipeline reliability.
• Contribute to performance, accessibility, security, compatibility, and resiliency testing strategies.
• Implement dashboards and quality metrics that provide visibility into coverage, defects, execution stability, and release risk.

Stakeholder and Business Outcome Ownership

• Communicate quality status, release risks, dependencies, and recommendations to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Provide objective, data-driven release-readiness assessments rather than limiting accountability to test completion.
• Drive measurable improvements in release confidence, escaped defects, automation coverage, cycle time, and customer experience.

MUST HAVE Skills:

• 12–15 years of experience in software quality engineering, test automation, or SDET roles, including technical leadership responsibilities.
• Deep hands-on experience designing and developing automation frameworks using Playwright.
• Strong programming capability in TypeScript or JavaScript; working knowledge of Python or Java is valuable.
• Strong experience testing modern web applications across multiple browsers and responsive interfaces.
• Expertise in API testing using tools or frameworks such as Karate, REST Assured, Playwright API, Postman, or equivalent.
• Experience designing maintainable automation using page/component models, reusable fixtures, data-driven approaches, and appropriate design patterns.
• Strong knowledge of test pyramid principles, shift-left testing, risk-based testing, and quality engineering practices.
• Experience integrating automation with CI/CD platforms such as Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, or equivalent.
• Proficiency with Git-based version control, pull requests, code reviews, and branching strategies.
• Experience with BDD and Gherkin, with sound judgment on where behavior-driven specifications add value.
• Strong understanding of test data management, service virtualization, mocking, environment management, and defect lifecycle.
• Ability to troubleshoot complex failures across UI, API, integration, data, and application layers.
• Strong stakeholder communication, analytical thinking, influencing, and technical decision-making skills.

SHOULD HAVE Skills

• Experience testing applications hosted on AWS or another public cloud platform.
• Experience with containerized test execution using Docker and cloud-based browser execution platforms.
• Familiarity with accessibility testing tools and WCAG-aligned validation practices.
• Experience with performance testing tools such as k6, JMeter, or Gatling.
• Working knowledge of application security testing and secure software development practices.
• Knowledge of observability platforms such as Splunk, Dynatrace, Datadog, or OpenTelemetry.
• Experience testing enterprise applications in the Property & Casualty insurance domain.
• Familiarity with policy administration workflows or platforms such as Duck Creek Policy.
• Experience using AI-assisted engineering and testing capabilities for test generation, defect analysis, and productivity improvement.

Education

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related discipline; equivalent relevant experience may be considered.

Hartford Success Profile

• Owns product quality and business outcomes—not merely test execution.
• Leads through technical credibility, hands-on contribution, and sound engineering judgment.
• Builds quality into the delivery lifecycle rather than treating testing as a final-stage activity.
• Balances delivery speed with customer experience, security, resilience, and long-term maintainability.
• Communicates release risk clearly and provides data-driven recommendations.
• Acts as a technical multiplier by improving team capability, engineering practices, and automation effectiveness.