Principal Automation Test Engineer (Desktop Application)

OP is a technology consulting and solutions company, seeking a visionary Principal Automation Engineer to lead their automation excellence. The role involves leading automation strategy and hands-on design and build of automation frameworks for desktop applications, while providing technical leadership and mentorship to the automation team.

Responsibilities:

• Architect and design robust automation frameworks specifically for desktop applications, ensuring scalability, maintainability, and long-term adaptability across multiple platforms and technologies
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship, guiding the automation team through complex design challenges and promoting best practices in automation engineering
• Develop and enhance automation strategies covering desktop, API, and database layers, integrating them into CI/CD processes to ensure continuous quality and reliability
• Partner closely with application SMEs, domain architects, infrastructure teams, and project managers to align automation initiatives with business and technical goals
• Analyze existing manual testing processes for desktop software and identify opportunities to replace or augment them with automated solutions
• Maintain, evolve, and optimize the in-house automation framework to ensure compatibility and efficiency across various desktop environments and configurations
• Participate in root cause analysis and troubleshooting efforts, driving cross-team collaboration to identify and resolve defects efficiently
• Provide detailed estimates, solution designs, and test automation strategies for upcoming desktop-based projects
• Participate in OP monthly team meetings, and participate in team-building efforts
• Contribute to OP technical discussions, peer reviews, etc
• Contribute content and collaborate via the OP-Wiki/Knowledge Base
• Provide status reports to OP Account Management as requested

Requirements:

• 10+ years of hands-on experience designing, building, and maintaining test automation frameworks, with a strong focus on desktop application testing (Windows, .NET, or similar environments)
• Proven expertise in framework architecture and design patterns for test automation, including component-based, modular, and data-driven approaches
• Strong understanding of desktop UI automation tools and libraries (e.g., WinAppDriver, White, Pywinauto, FlaUI, TestStack, or equivalent)
• Experience developing automation for APIs, packaged, and custom desktop applications
• 7+ years of experience collaborating with cross-functional teams and stakeholders across engineering, QA, and business units to align automation goals and deliver enterprise-grade solutions
• Strong Python skills required, as well as one other programming/scripting language (.NET, C#, Java, Bash, etc.) for building automation utilities and integrating frameworks
• Strong SQL skills, including writing and maintaining queries, interacting with relational databases, and designing simple schema updates to support test automation
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines, enabling desktop test automation to execute autonomously in build and deployment workflows
• Comfortable working in both Windows and Linux environments for cross-platform automation support
• Excellent communication skills, capable of articulating technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Experience using Tosca or other enterprise-grade test automation platforms
• Prior experience in the utility or energy industry, or in other large-scale operational environments
• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field