Sr. QA Automation Test Engineer

Primary Purpose: The Autonomous Vehicle (AV) Test Engineering team at Motional is responsible for validating the safety, functionality, and performance of our self-driving technology and commercial operations platform through rigorous, system-level testing. Motional’s Las Vegas office is located less than 10 miles from the Las Vegas Strip at 730 E Pilot Road and is home to one of the largest fleets of self-driving vehicles. The city’s grid system of roads and status as one of America’s “smart cities” enables extensive research and development testing.

As a Senior QA Automation Test Engineer, you will lead the design, development, and execution of backend and frontend automation frameworks for our fleet operations platform—the operational backbone of our commercial robotaxi service. In this role, you will also lead and mentor a fellow automation engineer, driving best practices and continuous improvement across the team. Your work will establish scalable quality gates within CI/CD pipelines and ensure reliable end-to-end validation across fleet management, dispatching, and monitoring systems.

Essential Duties:

Automation Architecture & Framework Ownership

Own the architecture, development, and maintenance of scalable backend and frontend test automation frameworks for the fleet operations platform, with a primary focus on backend API and service-level validation.

Design and execute comprehensive automated test suites covering backend services, APIs, and data pipelines, as well as frontend UI workflows within the operations platform.

Develop automation solutions primarily in Python and Go for backend testing, and JavaScript for frontend validation, while proactively adopting new tools and frameworks as the platform evolves.

Integration & Platform Validation

Lead integration testing efforts for third-party APIs and internal services, ensuring reliable end-to-end data flow across fleet management, dispatching, and monitoring systems.

Conduct root-cause analysis on test failures and system defects, driving resolution across backend services and frontend interfaces.

Quality Strategy, CI/CD & Collaboration

Partner closely with software engineers and product teams to define test strategies, identify coverage gaps, and establish quality gates within CI/CD pipelines.

Contribute to documentation, test plans, and operational frameworks that bring clarity and transparency to the automation testing process for all stakeholders.

Leadership & Mentorship

Lead, mentor, and collaborate with one automation test engineer, providing technical guidance, code reviews, and support for professional development.

Drive continuous improvement and best practices across the automation testing function.

Strategic Adaptation & Support

Continuously adapt automation strategies in response to evolving platform requirements, architectural shifts, and stack changes.

Support after-hours validation or release activities as needed by fleet or field operations.

Travel domestically on occasion to support on-site testing or operational deployments.

Perform additional duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree or higher in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.

5+ years of experience in software QA or test automation, with a strong emphasis on backend and API testing.

Hands-on proficiency in Python and Go for backend test automation, and JavaScript for frontend automation.

Demonstrated experience designing and building automation frameworks from the ground up for complex, distributed systems.

Experience with REST/gRPC API testing, service integration validation, and data pipeline verification.

Experience with CI/CD pipelines and integrating automated quality gates for production-grade software releases.

Proven ability to lead technical efforts, operate autonomously, mentor engineers, and drive cross-functional collaboration.

Ability and willingness to quickly learn …