QA Automation Engineer - Manila, PH

Balsam Brands is a global eCommerce retailer with roots in holiday and home décor. Our flagship brand is Balsam Hill™, the world’s leading retailer of artificial Christmas trees and holiday décor. We strive for excellence in everything we do and present a unique opportunity for those seeking to have an impact in a people-first company that values relationship-building, authenticity, and doing the right thing. We have steadily growing teams in Boise, the Bay Area, Ireland, and the Philippines.

The company's mission is to create joy together. We empower our team and partners to love what they do, provide products and experiences that inspire meaningful moments with family and friends, and give back to our communities. When you join Balsam Brands, you’ll find a culture of caring people doing challenging work while building a welcoming workplace.

• Balsam Brands on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/balsam-brands/
• Balsam Brands on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/balsam_brands/
• Balsam Brands in Forbes: https://bit.ly/balsambrandsforbes

At Balsam International, our Philippine Regional Operating Headquarters, we like to think of our people-first culture as more than just a tagline. It's the heart of our company. Being recognized as one of the Philippine’s Best Work Places by the prestigious Great Place To Work organization is a testament to this.

We know that you need to feel comfortable in your work environment, so we make sure that everyone in the team is supported and cared for. Team Manila has been working from home since 2010 with occasional in-person meet-ups and events to help build relationships and foster camaraderie.

Team Manila represents nearly every function in the company — from Marketing to Operations and everything in between. Everyone gets to enjoy company-issued laptops and full employee benefits including HMO coverage, mental health support, paid time off, 13th-month pay, and many more. The company trips, wellness benefits, and other perks are just the cherry on top of our permanent work-from-home setup.

• Balsam International on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BalsamInternationalPH
• Balsam International on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/balsam-international-unlimited

At Balsam International, we strive to build a diverse, equitable, and inclusive team to fulfill our purpose to create joy together. Balsam International is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We encourage people from all backgrounds, ages, abilities, and experiences to apply. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, citizenship, marital or family status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy or caregiver status, or any other legally protected status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations to participate in the job application and interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment.

Reports directly to the Software QA Supervisor and responsible for implementing and developing the test automation infrastructure of the Quality Assurance team, involving test automation development, establishing coding standards and best practices for test automation, analysis and discovery of tools, and maintaining the test automation environment where the test scripts will run on. To ensure sufficient overlap with functional and cross-functional team members globally, this position reports on a flexible night shift schedule (usually 8pm to 4am PHT, adjusted to 8pm to 5am PHT when Daylight Saving Time ends) and is eligible for night differential pay.

What you'll be doing:
Implementation of tools, standards and best practices 

1. Implements best practices for test automation and shares it with the team. 
2. Works with the Test architect to design and implement the Automation framework.
3. Develops and implements automation test planning and strategy.

Automation environment maintenance 

1. Maintains and oversees the status of the test environments along its test data.
2. Ensures that the test environments are functional and caters to the needs for test automation.

Test Case Automation 

1. Designs and develops automated test scripts using standard automation tools and frameworks.
2. Conducts code reviews on teammates' pull requests.
3. Maintains and updates automated test scripts.
4. Plans automated suites to support project teams during regression testing.

Software Quality Assurance Exercise

1. Collaborates with teammates to establish internal processes and best practices for Software Quality Assurance.
2. Proposes and implements process improvements that could benefit not just the QA team, but the project team as well.
3. Allocates work, estimation, along with script development, within the automation team.
4. Stays up-to-date with the new testing tools and test strategies.

Cross-Functional Agile Collaboration

1. Participates in agile ceremonies like scrum meetings, sprint planning, project retrospectives and provide personal input and feedback.
2. Attends production or live deployments and monitors deployment status after performing sanity testing.
3. Creates a recording of user documentation of configurable components or any related functionalities for business users or as needed.
4. Collaborates remotely with cross-functional teams in the United States, Philippines, and India, including developers, product managers, and manual test engineers, to ensure the delivery of high-quality software.
5. Collaborates with the development team to integrate automated tests into the continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline.

Software Test Life Cycle Management

1. Executes test cases and/or scripts, including thorough regression tests, white or black box testing of new and existing functionalities, and manual execution of end-to-end scenarios.
2. Assesses scope of testing and create test suites in Zephyr for JIRA.
3. Reviews and collates test cycle metrics, including test progress, test results, defects found, overall testing status and potential risks, and reports to project stakeholders.
4. Investigates and debugs test failures, provides detailed reports and collaborates with the development team to resolve issues promptly.

Other Duties and Responsibilities

1. Performs other duties that maybe assigned from time to time.

What you bring to the table:  

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, or a related field.
• Minimum of two (2) to five (5) years of experience as a Test Automation Engineer or in a similar role.
• Must have experience in test automation tools such as Selenium, Playwright, TestComplete, JUnit, TestNG, REST Assured, Cucumber, etc.
• Must have a solid understanding of software testing principles, methodologies, and best practices, and be accustomed to Agile Development.
• Must be familiar with CI/CD concepts and tools and performance testing and security testing.
• Must be able to work a flexible night shift schedule (typically 8pm-4am PHT, adjusting to 8pm-5am PHT after Daylight Saving Time ends).

Location: The QA Automation Engineer position is a work-from-home position for Balsam International Unlimited Philippine ROHQ in Manila. Team members in the Philippines are located within Metro Manila, Bataan, Batangas, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Pampanga, Rizal, and Tarlac areas only.

Our must-haves:

• Must be open to joining some face-to-face gatherings, like our monthly functional meetings and quarterly teamwide events.
• Must have a back-up laptop or desktop for use, if primary laptop encounters issues.
• Must have a fast, reliable DSL, Fiber or Broadband connection (not mobile or broadband stick) as the primary internet connection with a minimum actual speed of 50MBPS.
• Must have a back-up internet connection of the same speed, if primary connection becomes spotty.

Status: This is a full-time, permanent position with benefits.

Hardware Provision: Company-issued Laptop will be provided on the first day.

At Balsam International, we strive to offer a competitive compensation and benefits package. For permanent, full-time team members, this includes:

• Government-mandated Benefits (SSS, PAG-IBIG, PhilHealth)
• 13th Month Pay
• Paid Leaves. We use time off to rest, go on vacation, or just sleep in! Our paid time off is flexible to our needs.
• Internet Subsidy. With internet allowance, we are set up for success.
• Healthcare Coverage (+ 2 dependents). We worry less about rising medical costs with flexible quality healthcare benefits.
• Maternity, Paternity, and Solo Parent Benefit. We make sure parents are supported while they navigate work and family life.
• Continuous Learning and Professional Development Benefit. Our professional and personal development are fully supported. Whether it be online courses, workshops or books!
• Mental Health Support. We manage work and life's challenges through Mental Health Day breaks, 24/7 professional counselling, and curated webinars.
• Company Incentive. An additional cash-based perk for all our Brandits based on company's performance.
• Meeting & Team Building Allowance. Happy tummies make our meetings more fun and productive!
• Shutdown Week. We can spend more time on things that matter with an additional one week paid time off on top of paid leaves.
• Volunteer Time Off. With two paid days off, we are able to volunteer for advocacies we believe in.
• Bereavement Leave. We get additional paid leaves when a loved one passes to grieve and provide immediate support to our families.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.