Software Test Automation Architect

Summary

Our Product Development & Operations (PDO) organization builds and runs the cloud platform that P&C insurers around the world rely on to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently. We combine digital, core, analytics, and AI to deliver secure, scalable solutions that power mission-critical insurance workflows in the cloud. You'll join a highly collaborative engineering culture that values inclusive teamwork, technical depth, and continuous improvement across our modern, cloud-native stack.

As a Software Test Automation Architect, you will own the vision, design, and evolution of our test automation frameworks and quality tooling for Guidewire Cloud and our AI-augmented product portfolio. You'll spend most of your time hands-on - building resilient test infrastructure, integrating automation into CI/CD for zero-downtime releases, and shaping how we use AI agents to transform continuous testing. Working closely with product, platform, and SRE teams, you'll be a key driver of PDO priorities around operational excellence, GenAI adoption, and measurable customer value, directly supporting Guidewire's mission to transform how the world's P&C insurers do business.

Job Description

• Own the end-to-end architecture and evolution of test automation frameworks and tooling across critical Guidewire Cloud and AI-powered services, ensuring they meet PDO reliability, security, and performance goals.

• Spend at least 70% of your time hands-on designing, implementing, and optimizing automation frameworks (API, UI, data, contract, and performance) using languages such as Java, Python, or JavaScript.

• Embed comprehensive automated testing into CI/CD pipelines to support zero-downtime, high-confidence releases, partnering with SRE to improve speed and stability of delivery.

• Design, prototype, and integrate AI and agentic testing capabilities to enhance test generation, data creation, defect detection, and edge-case discovery in line with Guidewire’s GenAI and Agentic AI Platform strategy.

• Collaborate with architects, product managers, and engineering leaders to define quarterly and annual quality objectives that support PDO priorities around operational excellence, cloud adoption, and customer-centric outcomes.

• Establish best practices, coding standards, and governance for test automation in distributed, microservices-based environments using Docker, Kubernetes, and modern data formats (e.g., Avro, Parquet).

• Mentor and influence SDETs and software engineers across teams, scaling quality practices through design reviews, pair programming, and reusable patterns that reduce time-to-value for new products and markets.

Through this work, you'll directly support Guidewire's mission to transform how the world's P&C insurers do business by delivering secure, resilient cloud services and AI-powered experiences that help customers engage, innovate, and grow efficiently.

• 12+ years of hands-on experience in software testing, test automation, and framework or platform-level test architecture for complex, distributed systems.

• Strong programming skills in one or more of:
  Java, Python, or JavaScript, including building libraries, services, and tooling used by other engineers.

• Deep understanding of distributed systems concepts such as consistency, availability, fault tolerance, durability, and consensus patterns, and how these impact testing strategies and quality architecture.

• Proven expertise in REST API test automation using frameworks such as Karate or Cucumber, plus experience with browser automation tools like Selenium Web Driver, Playwright, or Test Cafe.

• Hands-on experience testing and automating workloads running in containers and Kubernetes, including environment provisioning, test data strategies, and observability integration.

• Practical experience designing or integrating AI/GenAI-based solutions or agents into engineering workflows (for example, test generation, code analysis, intelligent triage, or anomaly detection).

• Strong analytical, debugging, and problem-solving skills, with a clear bias toward automation, simplification, and building for long-term maintainability.

• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with a track record of influencing cross-functional teams and driving alignment on quality and reliability goals.

• Experience in large-scale SaaS, cloud, or platform engineering environments, ideally in fintech, insurtech, or other highly regulated domains.

• Background in data-intensive systems and analytics platforms, including experience validating data pipelines, schemas (Avro/Parquet), and data quality at scale.

• Familiarity with performance, resiliency, and chaos testing strategies for microservices and event-driven architectures.

• Prior experience contributing to organization-wide quality strategies, technical standards, or enabling frameworks used across multiple product lines.

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent…