Job Purpose

Panera Bread is seeking a QA Test Automation Engineer to drive automated quality validation across Panera's customer-facing digital experiences, including Web, Mobile, Kiosk, and Catering platforms. This role designs, develops, and maintains automated test solutions using Playwright and Appium while leveraging AI-powered tools to accelerate test case creation, automated test generation, and ongoing automation maintenance. The ideal candidate combines software engineering skills with quality engineering expertise and is passionate about improving delivery speed, increasing automation coverage, and reducing manual regression testing. The engineer partners with Product, Engineering, Architecture, DevOps, and Quality Engineering teams to embed quality throughout the software development lifecycle and support Panera's automation-first, AI-enabled quality engineering strategy.

Location: St. Louis, MO (hybrid)

Duties & Responsibilities

The primary responsibilities of this job include, but are not limited to:

• Design, develop, execute, and maintain scalable automated test frameworks and test suites for Web and Mobile applications
• Develop automated regression, smoke, integration, end-to-end, and functional testing solutions using Playwright for Web and Appium for iOS and Android
• Create reusable automation components and test assets that improve testing efficiency, consistency, and maintainability while reducing manual regression effort
• Use AI-assisted tools to generate test scenarios, test cases, test data, automated test scripts, and validation logic from requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, designs, and production incidents
• Apply AI to maintain and optimize existing automation, including repairing brittle tests, updating selectors, identifying redundant tests, recommending coverage improvements, and improving suite reliability
• Review AI-generated test cases and automated tests for accuracy, completeness, maintainability, security, and alignment to business requirements before implementation
• Participate in requirements reviews, technical design sessions, backlog refinement, and sprint planning to identify quality risks and automation opportunities early
• Collaborate with software engineers to implement shift-left testing practices and strengthen defect prevention
• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines and support reliable automated quality gates for build, deployment, and release processes
• Analyze automation results, troubleshoot failures, distinguish application defects from test issues, and partner with development teams on root-cause resolution
• Develop metrics and reporting for automation coverage, execution reliability, defect detection, maintenance effort, and AI-enabled productivity gains
• Support cross-browser, responsive design, mobile device, accessibility, visual, and API validation as part of end-to-end customer journey testing
• Stay current on emerging automation frameworks, AI testing capabilities, and quality engineering practices, and recommend practical adoption opportunities
• Contribute to the Quality Engineering automation roadmap and the organization's automation-first, quality-built-in vision

Key Performance Indicators

• Growth of front-end automation coverage across supported digital platforms and critical customer journeys
• Reduction in manual regression testing effort and cycle time
• Automation execution reliability, maintainability, and test suite stability
• Percentage of defects identified before production release and effectiveness of automated quality gates
• Speed of automation delivery for new features and platform enhancements
• Adoption and measurable productivity improvement from AI-assisted test design, automation generation, and maintenance
• Improvement in release confidence, software quality, and customer experience

Qualifications (Education & Experience)

Qualifications include:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or a related field; equivalent experience will be considered
• 3+ years of experience in software quality engineering, test automation, or software development
• Hands-on experience designing, developing, and maintaining automated tests with Playwright and Appium
• Strong proficiency in JavaScript and/or TypeScript, HTML, CSS, browser developer tools, and API testing
• Experience building or extending reusable automation frameworks and applying sound software engineering practices to test code
• Experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines and using Git-based source control
• Demonstrated experience using AI-assisted tools to generate test cases and automated tests and to maintain, troubleshoot, and optimize existing automation
• Ability to validate AI-generated outputs for correctness, coverage, maintainability, and alignment to requirements
• Experience working within Agile product delivery teams
• Strong analytical, debugging, troubleshooting, root-cause analysis, and communication skills
• Experience with AI-assisted engineering tools such as GitHub Copilot, Gemini, Claude Code, ChatGPT, Cursor, or comparable technologies preferred
• Experience with BrowserStack, Sauce Labs, or comparable browser and mobile device farms preferred
• Experience supporting eCommerce or other high-volume, customer-facing digital platforms preferred
• Experience with accessibility testing, visual testing, performance validation, and API or contract testing preferred

Working Conditions

• Primary location: St. Louis Support Center / Hybrid
• Hybrid work model as defined by company policy

Physical Requirements

• While performing this job, the incumbent is regularly required to stand, sit, talk, hear & use hands and fingers to operate keyboards

Direct Reports

• No

Equal Opportunity Employer: Disabled/Veterans

Competitive Pay $86,033 - $103,239 annually

The actual pay offered will be determined by multiple factors, including but not limited to the candidate’s relevant experience, job-related knowledge, skills, and geographical location. Individual compensation decisions are dependent upon the facts and circumstances of each position and candidate.