Quality Engineer, Automation & AI

Quality Engineer, Automation & AI

Role Summary: The Quality Engineer, Automation & AI at inKind plays a critical role in ensuring the quality, performance, and reliability of the applications that power seamless dining experiences for our restaurant partners and their guests. You'll design automation frameworks, perform exploratory testing, and help shape the future of quality engineering at inKind.

This is a hands-on, engineering-focused role that blends automation, manual testing, and modern AI-powered testing approaches. You'll work closely with product and engineering teams to identify risks early, build high-quality systems, and elevate the entire QA function. As part of a fast-moving dev environment, you'll be encouraged to think beyond traditional QA boundaries and contribute to broader product and engineering goals.

Who You Are:

• Technically Fluent: You have strong programming fundamentals and can build robust automation with modern tooling.
• Curious & Exploratory: You dig deep to uncover edge cases and understand how systems behave under real-world conditions.
• AI-Inspired: You're excited to explore Generative AI and AI-powered testing tools to improve efficiency and coverage.
• Quality-Focused: You balance automation with hands-on testing, choosing the right approach for the problem.
• Startup-Minded: You adapt quickly, work autonomously, and thrive in an environment where quality ownership is shared across teams.
• Collaborative & Clear: You partner closely with engineering, product, and business stakeholders to deliver exceptional user experiences.

Responsibilities:

• Test Automation & Engineering
• Design, build, and maintain scalable, reusable automation frameworks for web, mobile, and API testing
• Implement automated suites that integrate into CI/CD pipelines and improve release confidence
• Leverage AI- and ML-powered testing tools to enhance coverage, speed, and overall QA intelligence
• Manual & Exploratory Testing
• Conduct hands-on functional, regression, and exploratory testing across inKind's apps and platform
• Identify edge cases, user experience gaps, and defects through deep investigative testing
• Apply risk-based testing practices to prioritize where time and focus matter most
• Quality Leadership & Collaboration
• Partner with engineering and product teams to define testing strategies throughout the development lifecycle
• Advocate for quality by raising risks early, validating requirements, and improving testability
• Take ownership of quality outcomes, proactively identifying gaps and guiding continuous improvement efforts
• Innovation & Continuous Improvement
• Experiment with Generative AI tools to enhance efficiency and expand automation coverage
• Drive improvements to test frameworks, tooling, and processes across engineering teams
• Contribute ideas that impact product functionality, reliability, and customer experience, not just QA processes

Minimum Qualifications

• 5+ years of combined automation and manual testing experience
• Proficiency in at least one programming language: TypeScript, Java, Python, or JavaScript
• Experience with automation tools such as Playwright, Cypress, Selenium, WebdriverIO, or Appium
• Strong understanding of manual testing, exploratory techniques, and risk-based testing
• Experience working in fast-paced startup or agile environments
• Interest in or experience with AI-powered and Generative AI testing tools
• Strong problem-solving skills and an inquisitive mindset
• Ability to collaborate across cross-functional teams and contribute beyond traditional QA responsibilities

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices
• Familiarity with cloud environments such as AWS, GCP, or Azure
• Experience with data-driven testing or validating analytics pipelines
• Contributions to open-source testing tools or personal engineering projects
• Ability to write maintainable test code that supports long-term scalability

Some of Our Benefits:

• Generous PTO and company holiday policy + company paid Short Term Disability
• 100% employer covered health and dental insurance for our direct employees (a set plan is covered, with higher tier healthcare coverage available at employee's additional cost; dependent coverage is at employee's cost); vision plan available at employee's additional cost
• Child Care Benefits and generous parental leave
• Dog-friendly workspace in a secure building with great views of downtown Austin
• Daily lunches and snacks for in-office team members

Salary:

• $110,000 - $130,000, DOE