Essential technical skills:

· Extensive use of Cursor and Claude Code (or equivalent) to build, refactor, and review test code and pipelines.

· Strong Python-first test automation: Pytest as the default, with httpx or requests and Testcontainers-style patterns as needed; polyglot ability to own or support Playwright or Cypress (JavaScript or TypeScript), JUnit, or other frameworks when components are not Python-native.

· API-first and contract or schema-based testing; embedding tests in CI/CD pipelines.

· Azure-focused testing experience; willingness to automate against AWS services when needed.

· Familiarity with AFA testing-strategy and API-first rules as enforceable guidance, not paper-only standards.

Agile mindset and soft skills:

· Shift-left partner to developers: clarify acceptance criteria, test data, and environments early.

· Express quality expectations as executable tests and CI gates; use ADRs or short notes in Git only when they capture durable decisions.

· Pragmatic about automating stable contracts and critical paths over brittle UI-only coverage.

· Collaborate with Full Stack engineers, architects, the Cloud Architect, and DevOps on definition of done.

Desirable additional skills:

· Contract testing (e.g. Pact) or consumer-driven contracts for fast-evolving APIs.

· Post-deploy smoke tests coordinated with Terraform plan/apply and pipeline stages.

· Regulated industries; traceability from risk to automated test cases stored with the codebase.

· Pull requests that tighten AFA testing-strategy or observability guidance based on delivery learnings.