Senior QA Automation Engineer

Empower Pharmacy is a visionary healthcare company dedicated to making quality, affordable medication accessible to millions of patients nationwide. As the nation’s most advanced 503A compounding pharmacy and FDA-registered 503B outsourcing facility, we’re redefining what’s possible in personalized medicine and pharmaceutical manufacturing. We’re proud to be recognized as one of Houston’s fastest-growing private companies and ranked #116 in Healthcare & Medical on the Inc. 5000 List for 2025.

Our strength is built on four core values: People, Quality, Service, and Innovation. Guided by these principles, we’ve created a uniquely integrated healthcare platform powered by advanced technology, operational excellence, and a relentless commitment to patient care. From manufacturing and quality control to distribution and customer experience, our teams work together to raise industry standards, expand access to critical medications, and improve outcomes for patients and providers across the country.

At Empower, joining our team means more than starting a new role. It means becoming part of a mission-driven organization that’s transforming healthcare at scale. We invest deeply in our people, encourage bold thinking, and create opportunities for growth, leadership, and innovation at every level. Your ideas matter here, your development is supported, and the work you do has a direct impact on the lives of millions.

If you thrive in a fast-moving, purpose-driven environment where innovation, collaboration, and ambition come together, Empower Pharmacy is the place for you. Let’s transform healthcare together.

POSITION SUMMARY

The Senior QA Automation Engineer serves as a senior technical authority responsible for advancing Empower's enterprise test automation strategy across complex software systems supporting rapidly scaling 503A/503B operations, including manufacturing, order management, and compliance-critical applications. This role establishes scalable automation approaches, technical standards, and quality engineering practices that improve software reliability, release confidence, and organizational speed.

The position provides advanced technical leadership across the full automation lifecycle, including automation architecture, test strategy, framework design, CI/CD integration, risk-based testing, defect prevention, and continuous improvement. The Senior QA Automation Engineer exercises substantial independent judgment in identifying systemic quality risks, evaluating complex technical tradeoffs, and recommending solutions that influence multiple applications and cross-functional teams.

Operating in a highly regulated environment, this role serves as a key technical partner to Engineering, Product, QA, Validation, and business stakeholders to ensure automated testing practices are scalable, reliable, traceable, and aligned with applicable computer system validation and data integrity requirements. The position also provides technical guidance and mentorship to QA engineers and analysts, strengthens organizational automation capabilities, and identifies emerging technologies and AI-enabled opportunities that improve testing effectiveness while maintaining accountable engineering judgment.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Test Automation Architecture and Technical Leadership

Automation Strategy: Lead the development and evolution of scalable test automation strategies across multiple applications and technology environments. Establish automation priorities based on business risk, technical complexity, release frequency, and organizational impact.

Framework Architecture: Design and evolve reusable automation frameworks, standards, and patterns supporting UI, API, integration, regression, and other automated testing needs. Evaluate technical tradeoffs and establish approaches that improve maintainability, scalability, reliability, and long-term engineering efficiency.

Technical Standards: Define and promote automation engineering standards, coding practices, test design principles, and documentation requirements that improve consistency and quality across teams. Review complex automation solutions and provide technical recommendations to strengthen overall testing practices.

CI/CD Enablement: Partner with Engineering and DevOps teams to embed automated testing into CI/CD pipelines and release processes. Identify opportunities to improve test execution speed, environment reliability, test data management, and quality feedback loops across the software delivery lifecycle.

Quality & Problem Solving

Risk-Based Test Strategy: Lead the assessment of complex system changes and determine appropriate automation and testing strategies based on business criticality, technical risk, regulatory requirements, integration dependencies, and potential customer or operational impact.

Complex Problem Resolution: Investigate complex automation failures, systemic defects, production incidents, and recurring quality issues. Apply advanced technical analysis to identify root causes, evaluate solution alternatives, and recommend sustainable corrective actions.

Quality Engineering: Influence a proactive quality engineering approach by identifying quality risks early in the development lifecycle and partnering with technical teams to improve testability, defect prevention, and release readiness.

Continuous Improvement: Lead initiatives that improve automation coverage, test reliability, framework maintainability, and engineering efficiency. Identify systemic opportunities to reduce manual testing, eliminate recurring defects, and strengthen the organization's overall quality maturity.

Cross-Functional & Enterprise Influence

Strategic Partnership: Serve as a senior technical advisor to Engineering, Product, QA, Validation, and business stakeholders on automation capabilities, testing risks, quality tradeoffs, and release readiness.

Technical Influence: Lead cross-functional discussions involving complex testing challenges and competing priorities. Influence technical decisions and quality strategies through expertise, data, risk analysis, and practical recommendations.

Mentorship and Capability Building: Provide advanced technical guidance, coaching, and mentorship to QA engineers, analysts, and other technical team members. Share expertise, establish reusable practices, and strengthen organizational capability in automation engineering.

Technology Evaluation: Evaluate emerging testing technologies, AI-enabled capabilities, and automation tools to determine their potential value and appropriate use within Empower's technology environment.

Regulated Quality & Compliance

Compliance Strategy: Provide technical leadership for automation practices supporting regulated applications and ensure testing approaches maintain appropriate traceability, documentation, data integrity, and validation discipline.

Validation Partnership: Partner with Validation and Quality teams to translate regulatory and computer system validation requirements into practical, scalable automated testing approaches.

Risk Escalation: Independently identify and escalate significant technical and quality risks that could affect regulated operations, software reliability, business continuity, or compliance.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

Advanced expertise designing and evolving scalable test automation frameworks for UI, API, integration, and regression testing using technologies such as Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, or similar platforms.

Advanced proficiency in at least one programming or scripting language used for automation engineering, such as Python, Java, JavaScript, or TypeScript, including the ability to establish reusable automation patterns and engineering standards.

Advanced understanding of API testing, SQL, test data management, service integrations, and complex software architectures.

Strong expertise integrating automated testing into CI/CD pi