Open to opportunities

Alex McConaughey

@alexmcconaughey

Quality Engineering Lead building AI-ready test automation strategies that reduce risk and accelerate reliable releases.

United States

Message

What I'm looking for

I’m looking to build the QA playbook—pairing human risk judgment with fast, AI-assisted automation—so teams can ship weekly with confidence, improve developer workflow feedback loops, and prevent AI-powered “enshittification” through real reliability.

I’ve spent 20+ years in quality engineering and DevOps, watching new technologies repeatedly promise to eliminate QA—only to reveal why judgment and user-risk thinking can’t be automated away. Now AI is amplifying the cycle with faster iterations and subtler bugs, so I build quality engineering that scales with the new reality.

At Yellowbrick Data, I led quality engineering through a decade of transformation, from a hardware appliance startup to a cloud-native enterprise platform. I built and rebuilt the QA organization through pivots and restructures, led teams of 5–15 engineers, and established scalable QA practices that survived major organizational change.

My impact has been both strategic and technical: I drove QA migration from on-prem hardware to cloud-native Kubernetes across AWS and Azure, architected testing infrastructure for containerized environments, and designed chaos testing frameworks for enterprise-scale reliability. I also evolved release delivery from waterfall to continuous deployment with pipelines that enabled weekly releasable builds.

I’m equally focused on making testing easier to do. I created a specialized DSL for SQL testing to democratize test creation, integrated AI-assisted testing approaches (including prompt engineering for test generation), and implemented CI/CD automation to reduce manual regression overhead. Earlier at Dell, I built and evolved automation platforms that connected Selenium-based testing with broader infrastructure, helping teams detect issues earlier and cut maintenance time.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Senior Quality Automation Lead

Yellowbrick Data

Sep 2015 - Apr 2026 (10 years 7 months)

Led quality engineering through a transformation from hardware to a cloud-native enterprise platform, building and rebuilding the QA org across pivots and restructures. Managed teams of 5–15 engineers, migrated QA to Kubernetes (AWS/Azure), and moved release processes to continuous deployment with weekly releasable builds.

Test Automation Quality Engineering Kubernetes AWS Azure Selenium CI CD Chaos Engineering

Automation Engineer & Special Projects

Dell ESM

Apr 2012 - Sep 2015 (3 years 5 months)

Conceived and enhanced an automation platform supporting both manual QA and developer-run automated tests, improving stability for localized UIs. Integrated Selenium with VMware vCenter and a bespoke PHP execution framework, partnering with development to address code and security testing needs and reduce automation maintenance effort.

PHP Selenium Testing Frameworks UI Test Automation Regression Testing CI CD Security Testing

Software Quality Assurance Engineer II

Dell ESM

Aug 2010 - Apr 2012 (1 year 8 months)

Designed and executed automated test cases using Java and Selenium and created detailed test plans for Dell SaaS offerings. Performed web application and API testing with SoapUI, partnering with development for early defect identification and customer issue support.

Java Selenium API Testing SoapUI SaaS Testing Web Application Testing Test Planning

QA Engineer I (Post-Acquisition)

Dell ESM

Nov 2007 - Aug 2010 (2 years 9 months)

Developed and executed feature-specific test plans for a Dell SaaS platform while collaborating with product management and development to refine product features. Built and maintained QA tooling (including a Mailinator-like email testing system) and implemented client-side automation plus security testing to address XSS and SQL injection risks.

Test Planning Black Box Testing Ruby on Rails Client Automation Security Testing XSS SQL Injection SaaS Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance Engineer I

Everdream Software

Dec 2005 - Nov 2007 (1 year 11 months)

Developed and executed SaaS feature test plans and cases, collaborating with product management and development to improve product functionality. Built and maintained internal QA tooling, including a Mailinator-analog email testing system, and performed comprehensive black-box testing for reliability.

Test Planning Ruby on Rails Black Box Testing SaaS Testing QA Website Maintenance Test Case Development Web Application Testing

Faculty Assistant, NCM Lab

DeVry University

Jan 2004 - Jan 2006 (2 years)

Provided in-person and phone support to students and faculty and managed lab operations, including an 80-node network and 9 Windows/*nix servers for reliable 24/7 uptime. Oversaw a team of 12 student employees and handled network equipment management using Cisco tools and Active Directory/bind.

Network Administration System Administration Windows Server Linux Unix Network Tools Active Directory server management Team Leadership