Lead Automation Tester

Why do you need to choose between doing important work and having a fulfilling life? At Ardent, we have both. Ardent employees are committed to solving our customers’ most difficult problems—and we are committed to the well-being, personal goals, and professional development of our employee. We are “All In.” We put forth our strongest effort possible to get the mission accomplished and we do it together. We respect the skills and experience you bring to the Ardent team. And we provide a rewarding environment to help you succeed. 

We offer highly competitive benefits, professional development opportunities, and an exceptional culture that embraces flexibility, innovation, collaboration, and career growth. A collective service mindset underpins our work, and a shared camaraderie to serve clients, colleagues and our communities set us apart. Or full commitment to being "All In" for our employees and our clients is not just our approach, it is our standard. If this sounds like the perfect fit for you, choose Ardent and make a difference with us. 

Ardent is seeking a Lead Automation Tester to drive quality assurance strategy, lead test automation efforts, and enhance testing standards across a suite of enterprise human services platforms. This role involves technical leadership in test architecture, tool development, and cross-functional collaboration to ensure high-quality, scalable software. Ideal candidates have deep expertise in automation frameworks, QA methodologies, and a passion for innovation in testing practices.

This is a remote opportunity. Candidate must be able to work standard business hours in the Eastern Time Zone. 

Position Description: As a Lead Automation Tester, you will lead the development of robust test automation frameworks for complex, enterprise-level human services platforms. This role requires a forward-thinking leader who can formulate long-term QA strategies, select and implement cutting-edge testing tools, and drive continuous improvement in testing coverage and efficiency. The ideal candidate will bring deep expertise in software testing methodologies, automation tools (such as Selenium, Appium, and UIPath), and modern development practices. You will collaborate closely with cross-functional teams—including product managers, engineers, UX designers, and other QA professionals—to design and implement scalable, high-quality testing solutions. Strong coding skills in Java and JavaScript, a solid understanding of test design patterns, and experience with RESTful API and data pipeline testing are essential. If you are passionate about delivering high-quality software and mentoring teams in best practices, we’d love to hear from you.

Responsibilities:

• Formulate long term strategies for quality assurance testing, and analyze long term impacts
• Lead decision making around the selection of third-party testing tools or development of new tools and best practices
• Work independently, within, and across teams to design and develop technical solutions, address complex issues, and execute QA tasks in collaboration with a product manager, tech lead, UX designers, other QAs, and engineers
• Provide technical leadership in the architecture/design, development, and implementation of testing tools for multiple products and services delivered as part of human services platform using state-of-the-art frameworks and tools
• Improve the automation testing coverage to all features and functionality
• Establish and enforce architectural standards and development best practices by leading and mentoring other members of the team, conducting code review, and creating documentation
• Ability to organize and prioritize multiple assignments

Requirements:

• 8+ years’ experience with software quality assurance testing, including unit, integration, load, stress, security penetration, and performance testing
• 4+ years of experience in automation testing and releasing large enterprise applications
• Expert in software quality and testing methodologies
• Expert in test automation tools, UI automation frameworks (Selenium, UIPath, etc.), and Mobile automation frameworks (Appium, etc.)
• Excellent coding skills in Java and JavaScript
• Experience with Test Design Patterns
• Excellent fundamental knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and object-oriented design
• Deep understanding of system development life cycle, technical project management approaches and requirements, and design techniques on multi-track projects
• Unrelenting need to perpetually optimize testing coverage, testing process, and principles and continuously increase the solutions quality
• Experience doing quality assurance testing of a complex enterprise software product, including cross-component and cross-module integration testing and load/performance testing
• Experience identifying when automated testing is not sufficient and when manual testing is critical
• Extensive experience working as an integral part of a cross-functional agile development team using test-driven development
• Experience with RESTful API enterprise system testing
• Experience with data transformation and data pipelines testing models and approaches
• Deep interest in Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Natural Language Processing
• Strong presentation, interpersonal and communication skills

What sets you apart:

• Experience in RPA development using RPA solutions (e.g., UI Path, Automation Anywhere, Tricentis RPA)
• Experience integrating RPA with other tools (e.g., Jira, ServiceNow, SharePoint, Email, etc.)
• Exceptional ability to process and synthesize information to deliver optimal solutions and identify roadblocks.
• Ability to organize and prioritize multiple assignments
• Cloud Professional level certification (Solutions Architect, DevOps, SysOps Administrator, or Developer)

Due to the nature of the work, we support, all candidates in consideration for this role must be U.S. Citizens willing to undergo the government-issued background investigation process.

Ardent is an equal opportunity employer. We will not discriminate in employment, recruitment, advertisements for employment, compensation, termination, upgrading, promotions, and other conditions of employment against any employee or job applicant on the bases of race, color, gender, national origin, age, religion, creed, disability, veteran's status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or any other basis protected by state, local, or federal law.