Open to opportunities

Erick Castaneda

@erickcastaneda

Message

QA Lead and automation architect building AI-driven test platforms end to end.

Zimbabwe

Message

What I'm looking for

I’m looking for a role where I can own QA architecture end-to-end—building scalable automation, quality gates, and AI-assisted test authoring—while partnering closely with engineering to drive reliability, faster releases, and strong team enablement.

I’m a QA Lead / QA Architect focused on building end-to-end test automation platforms that turn speed, reliability, and visibility into measurable outcomes. I’ve designed frameworks and infrastructure that scale across teams, browsers, and environments—so quality becomes repeatable, not heroic.

At PortraitSpa, I designed and built an automation platform from scratch using Playwright + TypeScript, an Express + PostgreSQL backend on AWS ECS, and a Slack-native control plane with an AI bot. I grew automated regression coverage by 33% in a single sprint and delivered the first admin-side regression suite using an AI authoring pipeline, cutting new-test creation from days to hours.

I architected a 3-layer Component-Object-Model + Actions framework and enabled multi-user fixtures running end-user and admin browsers in parallel, including real SMS (Twilio) and S3-backed file fixtures for true E2E coverage. I also eliminated a 96× test slowdown on ECS by replacing networkidle waits with Playwright auto-waits and enforcing the rule via a workspace standard across contributors and AI agents.

Previously, at One10 Marketing, I acted as Quality Architect across FE/BE and cross-functional teams, defined quality gates for every SDLC stage, and pioneered shift-left practices with documentation, guidelines, and SLAs. I proposed and owned automation initiatives (Cypress and Playwright + TypeScript), built an internal UI for non-engineers to trigger runs with AI failure analysis, and mentored an offshore QA tech team while owning validation and dashboards end-to-end.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

QA Lead / QA Architect

Current

PortraitSpa

Mar 2024 - Present (2 years 3 months)

Designed an end-to-end QA automation platform from scratch combining Playwright + TypeScript, an Express + PostgreSQL backend on AWS ECS, and a Slack-native AI control plane. Grew automated regression coverage 33% in one sprint, cut new-test creation from days to hours, and eliminated a 96× ECS test slowdown (5.7s to 550s per test).

Playwright TypeScript Cypress Express PostgreSQL AWS ECS Slack AI Test Authoring Lighthouse Twilio

Senior Quality Assurance Engineer

One10 Marketing

Nov 2022 - Feb 2024 (1 year 3 months)

Owned quality architecture and shift-left strategy across FE/BE teams, defining QA principles, guides, and SDLC quality gates while managing incident playbooks and quality dashboards. Proposed and built Cypress + POM/Actions and Playwright + TypeScript frameworks in CI/CD, plus a GCP + Node.js + React internal UI for non-engineers to trigger automation with AI failure analysis.

Cypress Playwright JavaScript TypeScript POM Actions CI CD GCP Azure DevOps Accessibility Testing

Software Quality Assurance Engineer

Praxent Llc

Oct 2020 - Oct 2022 (2 years)

Performed black-box and gray-box testing for a high-traffic non-profit web application serving 100k+ end users. Updated Selenium automation (Java) and built Cypress + JavaScript and Playwright + TypeScript frameworks using POM + Actions, integrating tests into GitHub CI/CD and configuring GCP QA tooling (Cloud Armor, Firestore, IAM).

Selenium Java Cypress Playwright TypeScript POM Actions GitHub Actions GCP CI CD E2E Testing

Remote Software QA Engineer

Applaudo Studios

Apr 2017 - Oct 2020 (3 years 6 months)

Led QA operations end-to-end across multiple projects, owning the QA process from Sprint 0 through delivery and maintenance. Built a JMeter performance testing framework that reduced an algorithm benchmark from 26 hours to 15 minutes for 10k simulated users (~100× improvement), and led manual E2E/smoke/sanity/regression testing across web, mobile, and desktop.

JMeter Performance Testing E2E Testing Smoke Testing Regression Testing QA Processes Web Testing Mobile Testing desktop testing Team Leadership

Remote Software QA Engineer

Rulesware

Oct 2011 - Apr 2017 (5 years 6 months)

Performed manual testing on a PEGA-based ERP for an enterprise automotive client using ISTQB-aligned black-box techniques to help prevent fraudulent insurance claims. Owned QA activities (test cases, bug creation, automation runs) and acted as Scrum Master/Product Owner, authoring user stories with technical documentation in Jira.

PEGA ISTQB Manual Testing Scrum Product Ownership Jira