Lead QA Engineer

Location: Irvine, CA -- Hybrid (3 days onsite/week)

Duration: 12 Months / Long-Term

Type: W2 Contract -- Open to candidates authorized to work in the U.S.

Job Summary: Our direct client, a leading American distributor of IT products and services, is seeking a Lead QA Engineer with strong hands‑on automation expertise to lead QA automation initiatives, design enterprise test frameworks, and drive quality across Agile delivery teams. Mandatory SkillsBeagleTest -- Must Have Hands‑on Java/Python scripting -- Must Have Selenium / Playwright -- Must Have API Automation -- Must Have (REST Assured/Postman/SOAP UI) Test Automation Architecture & Framework Design -- Must Have CI/CD & DevOps -- Must Have (Jenkins, Maven/Gradle, Docker) Agile QA / Scrum & Shift-Left Testing -- Must HaveKey Requirements 8 years of QA and Test Automation experience. 2 years leading QA teams or driving QA initiatives. Strong experience designing and implementing enterprise automation frameworks for web, API, backend, SOA, and ETL applications. Experience with BDD/TDD, Cucumber, TestNG, and scalable automation frameworks. Strong hands‑on programming experience with Java/Python; C#, Groovy is a plus. Experience with AWS/Azure, Kubernetes, Grafana, Kibana, and Elasticsearch. Strong experience with defect triage, release readiness, quality gates, and production issue analysis. Ability to lead automation strategy, code reviews, mentoring, and cross‑functional collaboration with QA, Development, Product, and Production teams. Experience driving automation maturity, CI/CD, release automation, test infrastructure, and continuous improvement.