Analyst, QA Analyst

Panera Bread is seeking a QA Test Automation Engineer to drive automated quality validation across Panera's customer-facing digital experiences, including Web, Mobile, Kiosk, and Catering platforms.

Location:

St. Louis, MO (hybrid)

• Design, develop, execute, and maintain scalable automated test frameworks and test suites for Web and Mobile applications
• Develop automated regression, smoke, integration, end-to-end, and functional testing solutions using Playwright for Web and Appium for iOS and Android
• Create reusable automation components and test assets that improve testing efficiency, consistency, and maintainability while reducing manual regression effort
• Use AI-assisted tools to generate test scenarios, test cases, test data, automated test scripts, and validation logic from requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, designs, and production incidents
• Apply AI to maintain and optimize existing automation, including repairing brittle tests, updating selectors, identifying redundant tests, recommending coverage improvements, and improving suite reliability
• Review AI-generated test cases and automated tests for accuracy, completeness, maintainability, security, and alignment to business requirements before implementation
• Participate in requirements reviews, technical design sessions, backlog refinement, and sprint planning to identify quality risks and automation opportunities early
• Collaborate with software engineers to implement shift-left testing practices and strengthen defect prevention
• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines and support reliable automated quality gates for build, deployment, and release processes
• Analyze automation results, troubleshoot failures, distinguish application defects from test issues, and partner with development teams on root-cause resolution
• Develop metrics and reporting for automation coverage, execution reliability, defect detection, maintenance effort, and AI-enabled productivity gains
• Support cross-browser, responsive design, mobile device, accessibility, visual, and API validation as part of end-to-end customer journey testing
• Stay current on emerging automation frameworks, AI testing capabilities, and quality engineering practices, and recommend practical adoption opportunities
• Contribute to the Quality Engineering automation roadmap and the organization's automation-first, quality-built-in vision

• Growth of front-end automation coverage across supported digital platforms and critical customer journeys
• Reduction in manual regression testing effort and cycle time
• Automation execution reliability, maintainability, and test suite stability
• Percentage of defects identified before production release and effectiveness of automated quality gates
• Speed of automation delivery for new features and platform enhancements
• Adoption and measurable productivity improvement from AI-assisted test design, automation generation, and maintenance
• Improvement in release confidence, software quality, and customer experience

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or a related field; equivalent experience will be considered
• 3+ years of experience in software quality engineering, test automation, or software development
• Hands-on experience designing, developing, and maintaining automated tests with Playwright and Appium
• Strong proficiency in JavaScript and/or Type Script, HTML, CSS, browser developer tools, and API testing
• Experience building or extending reusable automation frameworks and applying sound software engineering practices to test code
• Experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines and using Git-based source control
• Demonstrated experience using AI-assisted tools to generate test cases and automated tests and to maintain, troubleshoot, and optimize existing automation
• Ability to validate AI-generated outputs for correctness, coverage, maintainability, and alignment to requirements
• Experience working within Agile product delivery teams
• Strong analytical, debugging, troubleshooting, root-cause analysis, and communication skills
• Experience with AI-assisted engineering tools such as Git Hub Copilot, Gemini, Claude Code, ChatGPT, Cursor, or comparable technologies preferred
• Experience with Browser Stack, Sauce Labs, or comparable browser and mobile device farms preferred
• Experience supporting eCommerce or other high-volume, customer-facing…