Manager, Test Automation

Telesat • Ottawa, ON

4d

About The Position

Our Software Development team architects, develops, tests, and maintains the Telesat Lightspeed System Modelling and SDN Orchestration software ecosystem. This includes engineering software running on high-performance computing infrastructure for modelling resource allocation and analyzing end-to-end communication-system performance, as well as cloud-native services supporting software-defined networking and orchestration.
The Manager, Test Automation is responsible for leading the test automation strategy and managing a team of Software Developers in Test and test automation engineers. The team develops and operates automated testing capabilities covering functional, integration, system, regression, performance, stress, scalability, reliability, and resilience testing.
This is a technical, hands-on management role, with approximately 60% of the position focused on technical activities and 40% on people leadership, planning, and stakeholder management. The Manager is expected to contribute directly to automation architecture, framework development, technical reviews, complex problem-solving, and CI/CD integration while coaching and developing the team.
The successful candidate will collaborate with software development, systems engineering, architecture, DevOps, infrastructure, and product teams to embed quality throughout the software development lifecycle and provide reliable evidence of product quality, system performance, and release readiness.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, Telecommunications, or a related field.
• Significant experience in software development, software testing, quality engineering, or test automation, including experience leading or managing a technical engineering team.
• Strong hands-on development and automation experience using Java and/or Python, including designing test frameworks, implementing automated tests, reviewing code, and troubleshooting complex distributed systems.
• Experience with functional, integration, system, regression, performance, stress, scalability, reliability, and resilience testing.
• Experience with relevant automation technologies such as JUnit, TestNG, Pytest, Cucumber, REST Assured, Selenium, Playwright, JMeter, Gatling, Locust, Katalon, or comparable tools.
• Experience testing microservices, distributed and event-driven systems, REST and gRPC interfaces, messaging technologies, databases, and asynchronous workflows.
• Strong experience with GitLab, GitLab CI/CD, GitLab Runners, Linux, Kubernetes, Helm, cloud-native applications, and automated quality gates.
• Strong leadership, mentoring, planning, communication, analytical, and stakeholder-management skills, balanced with the ability and willingness to remain technically hands-on.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with high-performance computing, satellite communications, telecommunications, networking, SDN orchestration, Azure, simulation platforms, or engineering-modelling software is considered an asset.

Responsibilities

• Lead the test automation strategy, roadmap, technical architecture, standards, frameworks, and quality objectives across the software ecosystem.
• Manage, mentor, and develop a team of Software Developers in Test and test automation engineers, including resource planning, work prioritization, performance management, and career development.
• Dedicate approximately 60% of the role to hands-on technical work, including designing and developing automation frameworks, reviewing code, integrating tests into CI/CD pipelines, troubleshooting complex failures, and implementing critical automated tests.
• Lead the implementation of functional, integration, system, regression, performance, stress, scalability, reliability, resilience, and failover testing across distributed software, microservices, Kubernetes, Linux, cloud, and high-performance computing environments.
• Achieve and maintain automation of at least 80% of regression tests suitable and prioritized for automation, based on criticality, execution frequency, stability, technical feasibility, and expected value.
• Oversee the integration of automated tests, reports, and quality gates into GitLab CI/CD pipelines and ensure test assets, data, environments, configurations, and results are repeatable, traceable, and properly managed.
• Define and monitor quality metrics and deliver automated dashboards for engineering teams and executives covering test coverage, execution results, defect trends, performance, automation health, risks, and release readiness.
• Collaborate with software development, systems engineering, architecture, DevOps, infrastructure, networking, and product teams to establish acceptance criteria, improve testability, resolve quality risks, and promote shared ownership of quality.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager