Brian Alexander
SUMMARY
Experienced QA professional with over 13 years of success in software testing, automation, and CI/CD pipeline development. Proven ability to lead automation initiatives, transitioning teams to modern frameworks like Cypress and Gitlab CI. Proficient in Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, and Selenium, with a strong focus on building robust and reliable automated tests for web applications. Passionate about improving software quality, fostering collaboration, and contributing to innovative, fast-paced environments.
EXPERIENCE
- Led code quality initiative across 4 major repositories, reducing code smells by 62% (730→275) in largest project and achieving zero code smells in 3 critical repos.
- Developed and deployed new UI features from inception to completion, including unit and integration tests, ensuring high-quality code and a seamless user experience.
- Proactively identified and resolved code smells in critical projects, resulting in a more maintainable and scalable codebase.
- Implemented A/B testing and conducted experiments to optimize user engagement and improve feature performance.
- Resolved bugs in existing features, ensuring a stable and reliable user experience.
- Contributed to the cleanup of legacy A/B experiments, improving codebase maintainability and enabling more efficient implementation and analysis of future experiments.
- Assisted in an initiative to ensure website compatibility with UTF-16 encoding, enhancing support for diverse character sets and improving accessibility.
- Led the migration of automation from Python to Cypress (JavaScript), modernizing our test suite and aligning with our front-end technology stack.
- Developed and maintained automated tests using Cypress and Java for core Indeed features, supporting both front-end and back-end testing.
- Led the transition of our CI/CD pipeline from Jenkins to Gitlab CI, streamlining automation and improving deployment efficiency.
- Designed and implemented automated testing strategies for new products and features.
- Significantly improved test coverage and reliability by proactively addressing infrastructure and application changes.
- Mentored both new QAAE hires and existing QA engineers transitioning to automation roles, supporting the company’s shift-left strategy and fostering a stronger, more automated QA team.
- Developed and maintained automated tests using Python and Selenium WebDriver for web application testing.
- Introduced and implemented Requests and BeautifulSoup for rapid and reliable SEO and feature testing, reducing reliance on browser-based automation for specific use cases.
- Contributed to the shift towards React-based front-end development, impacting the evolution of our testing strategy.
- Proactively addressed application changes to maintain stable automated test runs.
- Contributed to the team's automation framework and best practices.
- Collaborated with development teams to integrate automated testing into the CI/CD pipeline.
- Tested integrations API (SOAP, REST), FTP and Web Applications.
- Developed automated test cases for web UI with Python/Unittest and Selenium.
- Developed automated test cases for SOAP API with Python/Suds.
- Assisted in development and implementation of test framework using pytest for a purely RESTful application.
- Improved existing automated tests to be more robust and dynamic.
- Assessed manual test coverage, planned and coordinated the creation of automated tests (web UI, API).
- Created test plans and documentation with complete test case coverage.
- Tested end-to-end data processing pipeline for POS integration: simulated point-of-sale transactions on virtualized environments, validated file upload to S3, queue-based processing, and data accuracy in downstream business reports; used Python to automate test data uploads and verify correct handling of updates and edge cases.
- Actively participated in the AGILE development processes from daily standups, sprint plans, meetings with developers and product owners.
- Built and maintained automated data acquisition scripts for 800+ university websites; participated in migration from proprietary scripting language to Python.
- Created test cases and performed regression testing on iOS and web applications.
- Worked with business development team by collecting statewide company information for business analysis.
SKILLS
Languages: Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, SQL, HTML/CSS
Frontend: React, Cypress, Storybook
Backend & APIs: REST API, SOAP API, Node.js, gRPC
Testing & Automation: Cypress, Selenium WebDriver, Jest, PyTest, Unittest, axe-core/Pa11y (accessibility), SonarQube, Requests/BeautifulSoup, SauceLabs
CI/CD & DevOps: Jenkins, GitLab CI, Git, Docker, AWS, Linux/Unix, Shell Scripting, Pipeline Integration
Practices: Agile/Scrum, Shift-Left Testing, A/B Testing & Experimentation, Accessibility Standards (WCAG 2.1), CI/CD, Feature Flags (Proctor)
Leadership: Technical Mentorship, Code Review, Backlog Management, Cross-Functional Collaboration, Interviewing & Hiring, Test Planning & Roadmapping
EDUCATION
August 2004 - May 2008
Texas State University
San Marcos, TX
Bachelor of Arts in Political Science