Automation Engineer I

Who we are:

At SpotHero, we work as a team to empower people to get everywhere, easier! We're rapidly growing with the mission of bringing the parking industry into the future through technology. Drivers across the nation use the SpotHero mobile app and website to reserve convenient, affordable parking in advance, on-the-go or through their connected cars, and parking companies rely on us to help them reach new customers while optimizing their business. We connect the dots with cutting-edge technology, delivering value to both sides of this exciting, evolving marketplace. We've been quite busy, take a peek at some of our recent announcements.

Automation Engineer at SpotHero:

SpotHero is seeking an Automation Engineer to join one of our engineering teams within the Quality Guild. This role blends hands-on manual testing with the writing and long-term maintenance of automated test suites, working shoulder-to-shoulder with backend, frontend, and mobile engineers to keep our releases fast and reliable as SpotHero scales.

As an Automation Engineer, you''ll be embedded in a team, participating in all of its ceremonies and reporting into that teams' structure, while also staying closely connected to our central Automation team and the broader Quality Guild. You''ll split your time between manual testing and building/maintaining automated coverage.

What You''ll Do

• Own and maintain all automated tests belonging to your team, keeping them consistently green and remediating failures quickly in collaboration with team members.
• Identify automation opportunities as new functionality ships, and write new end-to-end and integration tests in Playwright to cover it.
• Perform manual QA testing alongside automation work; exploratory testing, edge-case discovery, and release validation with backend and frontend engineers.
• Represent automation work as planned work in Jira/Scrum, keeping it visible alongside the rest of the team''s sprint commitments.
• Communicate the state of your team''s test coverage regularly to your team, the Quality Guild, and the Automation team, with a documented, historical view of progress.
• Contribute to our shared automation dashboards and monthly Automation Test Review, helping track test-suite growth, flaky/failing tests, and coverage trends over time.
• Give feedback to the central Automation team on the platforms, tooling, and processes SDETs maintain, surfacing bottlenecks you hit in day-to-day work.
• Partner with the Automation team on emerging tooling, such as CI-integrated continuous testing pipelines and AI-assisted test maintenance.

Key Responsibilities:

• Test Automation
• Write, run, and maintain automated tests in Playwright (migrating legacy web tests where applicable).
• Keep test suites healthy. Failing tests should not sit red for more than a sprint, trending toward no more than a week as you grow in the role.
• Contribute to observability tooling (e.g., Grafana dashboards) that gives the team and Quality Guild visibility into automation health.
• Manual QA
• Execute manual test plans for new features and releases, especially where automated coverage doesn''t yet exist.
• Identify edge cases and collaborate with engineers to resolve them before release.
• Collaboration & Communication
• Participate fully in your team''s ceremonies (planning, refinement, retros, stand-ups) as a core member.
• Maintain a rolling roadmap of what areas of functionality you plan to automate, feeding into your team''s quarterly planning.
• Represent your team in Quality Guild and Automation team forums, including the monthly Automation Test Review.

What you bring:

You might demonstrate the capabilities below through any combination of relevant professional experience, or a transition from a manual QA background.

• Experience writing and maintaining automated tests with Playwright (or a comparable framework such as Cypress, Selenium, or WebdriverIO).
• Working proficiency in JavaScript/TypeScript or Python.
• Hands-on manual QA experience including functional, regression, exploratory, and/or black-box testing.
• Comfort working in Git/GitHub and collaborating through pull requests and code review.
• Familiarity with Jira/Confluence-based Scrum workflows.
• Strong communication skills. You can clearly represent the state of testing to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders.
• A collaborative mindset: this role sits at the intersection of a team, the Quality Guild, and the central Automation team, and success depends on strong relationships across all three.

Nice to haves:

• Experience with CI/CD pipelines (we use Concourse) and integrating automated tests into them.
• Experience with TestRail or similar test-management/reporting integrations.
• Experience with backend testing against a Django/Python monolith or Go/Kotlin services.
• Interest in AI-assisted testing tooling (e.g., self-healing tests, LLM-assisted authoring).
• Prior experience as a QA Analyst or SDET.

Technology we use:

• Our Automation Stack is: Playwright for end-to-end and integration testing, with results tracked on Grafana dashboards; Concourse for CI/CD; Jira and Confluence for planning and documentation; GitHub for version control and code review; AWS (including S3) for supporting test infrastructure and reporting.

Seeking Candidates in:

• Chicago, Illinois

What we are offering:

• Career game changer - A truly unique experience to work for a fast-growing company in a role with unlimited growth potential.

• Excellent benefits

• We cover a generous portion of Medical Premiums, 50% of Dental and Vision Premiums, company-sponsored Life Insurance, STD, and AD&D coverage, a 401(k) with match and immediate vesting, and comprehensive leave policies to meet your needs in creating space for life.

• Flexible PTO policy and outstanding work/life balance - We value and support each individual team member.

• UberEats weekly lunch stipend for in-office days

• Udemy License and Personal Learning Budget - We support the professional and personal growth of our people by providing everyone with learning resources and development opportunities.

• Annual parking stipend - Duh. We help people park!

• The opportunity to collaborate with fun, innovative, and passionate people in a casual yet highly productive atmosphere.

• Our commitment to allyship has been a central driver of how we Respect Fellow Drivers. You'll have the opportunity to be part of Employee Resource Groups, access allyship learning resources, and actively contribute to our ongoing effort of making SpotHero inclusive for all.

• Employee programs to grow and support our people such as Discovery Days for Product and Engineering, Gearing up for Aspiring Leaders, and Mentorship Program.

• Wellness program - a workplace that actively supports your physical and mental wellbeing through ongoing events, initiatives, resources, and thoughtful perks and benefits.

• A workplace recognized as CityLights award winner by 1871, 2026 Best Places To Work by BuiltIn, Most Loved Workplace Certified by the Best Practice Institute, and recipient of multiple Comparably awards, including Best Company Culture, Best Company for Women, and Best Company for Diversity.

Compensation in Illinois:

• Depending on your skillset and experience, you can expect your base salary to be between $88,000 - $110,000 as well as a discretionary bonus, and leading total rewards package.

At SpotHero, we Respect Fellow Drivers by providing an inclusive interview experience for everyone, including people with disabilities. We are happy to provide reasonable accommodations to candidates in need of individualized support during the hiring process. Please let our team know of your need when you apply or as you begin interviewing with our team.

SpotHero is an equal opportunity employer. We know that a diverse workforce is the strongest workforce, and are committed to building and supporting an inclusive environment for all.Additionally, because we want to Remember to Signal, if you choose to provide us personal information in connection with a job application, please review our Applicant Privacy Notice which provides details about what information we collect and process about you in order to consider your candidacy.

PLEASE NOTE: This position is ineligible for visa sponsorship. To be considered for this role, you must be legally authorized to work in the US and not require sponsorship for employment now or in the future.