Senior/Lead Software Test Automation Engineer (Remote – Contractor)

Hubstaff

Location: Portugal, Poland, Romania
Job Type: full-time
Salary: $5,500–$6,500/month
Posted: July 23, 2025

Job Description

At Hubstaff, our mission is to empower people to have their most productive workday. We do this by providing the industry-leading workforce analytics and time tracking platform for remote and distributed teams.

We’ve been fully remote for over a decade—long before it became a trend—and we continue to believe that remote work represents the most significant shift in the modern workplace since the advent of the PC. Our platform helps more than 95,000 businesses track time, manage schedules, and automate payments with transparency and accountability at its core.

We’re a product-led company with a winning culture, strong momentum, and a long-term vision: to become an essential part of every remote company’s tech stack. And we’re just getting started.

The Position

We’re looking for a Senior or Lead Software Test Automation Engineer to take ownership of our test automation efforts and help scale quality engineering across teams. You’ll collaborate closely with Manual QA, Frontend, DevOps, and Product to build reliable, scalable, and well-documented test coverage that supports our continuous delivery goals.

This is a full-time (40 hrs/week), fully remote contractor role open to candidates based in Portugal, Poland, or Romania.

What You’ll Do

Extend and maintain our existing test automation framework (Playwright + JavaScript/TypeScript)
Build and manage end-to-end UI and API test coverage
Maintain automation documentation and internal libraries
Embed automated testing throughout the development lifecycle in collaboration with QA, Engineering, DevOps, and Product
Mentor and guide Manual QA engineers during onboarding and automation upskilling
Continuously improve our testing practices, tools, and frameworks
Support test execution within our CI/CD pipeline (GitHub Actions) and reporting tools (Allure TestOps)

Requirements

4+ years of QA experience, including 2+ years in test automation
Strong JavaScript and TypeScript skills
Proven experience with the Playwright framework
Comfortable writing and maintaining API tests
Familiar with GitHub Actions for CI/CD and Allure TestOps for reporting
Collaborative mindset and experience working cross-functionally
Ability to work independently, prioritize effectively, and communicate clearly
Fluent English (B2+ level or higher)

Bonus Points if You Have

Experience mentoring or onboarding QA engineers into automation
Familiarity with mobile or desktop application testing
Experience setting up virtual machines or test environments

Why You Should Apply

Own and influence the future of automation testing at a growing remote-first SaaS company
Make an immediate impact on the quality and reliability of our product
Collaborate with skilled, friendly teammates who value autonomy and accountability
Work with modern testing tools and CI/CD best practices

Compensation & Benefits

Location: Remote — open to contractors based in Portugal, Poland, or Romania
Contract Type: Full-time contractor (40 hours/week)
Rate: USD $34–$38/hour (approx. $5,500–$6,500/month, based on full-time hours)

Perks & Benefits:

Flexible working hours — we care about outcomes, not time tracking
Annual retreats in stunning destinations — past locations include Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Ibiza
Opportunity to grow your career and make an impact in a role aligned with your strengths and goals
A truly remote-first culture built on trust, autonomy, and collaboration

Inclusion at Hubstaff

Hubstaff is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all team members, regardless of background, identity, or lived experience.

🎯 Who is this job for?

This role suits a Senior or Lead QA Engineer with 4+ years of experience, including 2+ in test automation using JavaScript/TypeScript and Playwright. Ideal for someone skilled in building UI/API test coverage, working within CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions), and collaborating cross-functionally. It's perfect for engineers based in Portugal, Poland, or Romania who want to lead automation efforts in a remote-first SaaS environment.

💬 Potential Interview Questions

What advantages does Playwright offer over other test automation tools like Selenium?
Playwright supports multiple browsers out of the box, auto-waits for elements, handles modern JavaScript frameworks better, and provides more stable cross-browser testing.
Describe how you would structure an end-to-end test suite using Playwright and TypeScript.
Use a modular structure with test files by feature, page object models for maintainability, environment-specific configs, and CI-ready reporting integration.
How do you ensure test reliability in an automation framework?
Use explicit waits only when needed, clean up state between tests, isolate test data, and handle flaky tests with retries and logging.
What’s your approach to automating API tests and integrating them with UI tests?
Use API tests to seed and verify data, integrate them before or after UI flows, and validate backend responses independently from the UI.
How do you integrate automated tests into CI/CD using GitHub Actions?
Create workflows that run tests on PRs or merges, cache dependencies, parallelize where needed, and publish reports with Allure or test summaries.
How would you mentor a manual QA engineer transitioning to automation?
Start with basic scripting, pair programming on test cases, introduce them to debugging tools, and assign increasing complexity with review checkpoints.
How do you manage flaky or inconsistent test cases in an automated suite?
Track failures, isolate causes (timing, environment, network), fix root issues, tag flaky tests, and avoid reliance on UI animations or dynamic content.
What are best practices for maintaining reusable test utilities and components?
Use centralized helper functions, page object models, consistent naming, DRY principles, and document test logic thoroughly.
Describe how you would test a feature across multiple environments (e.g., staging, production).
Use environment configs, avoid destructive actions in production tests, separate CI pipelines, and secure sensitive data via secrets.
How do you monitor test execution and analyze results using Allure TestOps?
Configure Allure in CI, tag tests, view detailed test reports with traces and logs, and use dashboards to track coverage, flakiness, and failures over time.

📋 Job Summary

Hubstaff is seeking a Senior/Lead Test Automation Engineer to own and scale test automation for its remote-first time tracking platform. This full-time contractor role (remote in Poland, Portugal, or Romania) involves building UI/API tests using Playwright, JavaScript/TypeScript, and integrating with CI/CD via GitHub Actions and Allure. You'll mentor QA engineers, collaborate cross-functionally, and make a real impact on product quality. Enjoy \$5.5K–\$6.5K/month, flexible hours, annual retreats, and a trust-based remote culture. Ideal for automation experts passionate about quality and autonomy.