Quality Assurance Engineer

Quality Assurance Engineer
Vila Real
Vila Real, Vila Real District, Portugal

QA Automation Engineer (Test Automation & AI) – Hybrid Algarve

Location: Greater Faro / Loulé, Algarve – Hybrid (2–3 days/week in office)

Employment Type: Full-time

Seniority Level: Mid–Senior

Compensation: €35. 000–€45. 000 gross annual (depending on experience)

About Aiera

We’re helping Aiera.com , a
- growing,
- funded American startup in the financial technology industry, to build their first European engineering hub in the Algarve .

Aiera develops a
- generation financial research platform, including its own AI models tailored to financial markets , used by institutional investors and financial professionals globally.

As a QA Automation Engineer in this new Algarve team, you’ll play a key role in ensuring quality, reliability, performance, and UX for both traditional web features and AI-powered workflows across the platform.

Why This Opportunity Stands Out

• Real impact on product quality: Your work directly affects the stability, performance, and usability of a platform used by demanding financial professionals.
• Modern testing & automation stack: Work with pytest, Selenium , and other frameworks (Playwright, Cypress, etc. ), plus CI/CD (Git
  Hub Actions), to build robust, scalable test automation.
• AI domain: Help test AI-powered features and
  -
  - based tools , where output quality and edge cases really matter.
• Cross-functional collaboration: Partner closely with backend, Dev
  Ops, product, and support to define testing strategies, investigate bugs, and keep quality high as the platform evolves.
• Developer-friendly culture: Low bureaucracy, high ownership, and direct collaboration with senior engineers and leadership in the US.
• Lifestyle + career: Grow your tech career in a US-backed fintech while living a mediterranean lifestyle in the Algarve .

What You’ll Work On

As a QA Automation Engineer, you will:

• Collaborate with the QA Lead and engineering teams to design and maintain scalable automation frameworks for UI, API, and backend services.

• Design and document test plans, test cases, and scenarios for both manual and automated testing, focusing on critical user journeys and
  - risk areas.

• Build and enhance reusable test automation frameworks
• -- using Selenium and Playwright, or similar tools where appropriate.

• Develop and maintain API testing frameworks for
• -- REST and Graph
  QL APIs ,
• -- and Web
  Socket endpoints that power
  - time data pipelines and streaming features.

• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines (e. g. , Git
  Hub Actions) to ensure:
• -- Continuous validation during deployments, and
• -- Reliable nightly or scheduled regression runs.

• Perform manual testing to validate:
• -- Application functionality and correctness
• -- Usability and UX of key workflows

• Basic performance and behaviour under load (in collaboration with Dev
  Ops where needed)

• Test AI-powered features and
  -
  - based tools :

• Define and run test scenarios and evaluation sets for model outputs (relevance, correctness, consistency).

• Validate edge cases, failure modes, and guardrails (e. g. hallucinations, incomplete answers, unexpected behaviours).

• Help compare model versions (A/B) and track quality regressions when models, prompts, or data change.

• Execute and maintain automated test suites , updating them as features evolve to keep coverage high and relevant.

• Investigate and reproduce bugs :
• -- Use logs, browser dev tools, and test environments to narrow down issues.
• -- Provide clear, actionable bug reports (steps, expected vs actual behaviour, scope, environment).
• -- Use tools like Jira (or similar) to log, track, and follow up on defects.

• Collaborate with developers to ensure timely resolution of defects and regression issues, aligning on impact and priorities.

• Participate actively in agile ceremonies when needed (daily
  - ups, sprint planning, reviews, retrospectives) and be a key voice for quality in each cycle.

• Suggest and help implement improvements to testing processes, tools, and data , always looking for ways to increase efficiency and reliability.

Who We’re Looking For

Must-have qualifications

• 4+ years of experience in QA / software testing , including web applications in a professional software development environment.
• Hands-on experience with test automation , including:
• -- pytest (or similar Python-based testing frameworks), and
• -- Selenium (or similar browser automation tools) as a core part of your test automation work.
• Solid understanding of testing methodologies and types (STLC awareness is a plus): functional, regression, integration, exploratory, and basic performance/load testing.
• Proven experience designing and documenting test plans, test cases, and scenarios .
• Comfortable investigating and reproducing bugs , using browser dev tools, logs, and test environments.
• Experience using bug tracking and collaboration tools such as Jira or similar.
• Ability to read and understand technical specs, API docs, and logs ; comfortable working around backend services and APIs.
• Professional proficiency in English (written and spoken).
• Willingness to work 2–3 days/week in the office in the Greater Faro / Loulé area.

Nice-to-have

• Programming & backend familiarity
• -- Experience working in environments with a backend focus (microservices,
  - time data, etc. ).
• -- Comfortable with Python and related frameworks for writing tests, utilities, or lightweight automation.
• -- Experience with Graph
  QL and testing or interacting with APIs (REST, Graph
  QL, Web
  Sockets).
• -- Understanding of relational databases (e. g. , Postgres, My
  SQL) and using them to validate data flows and test results.

• Automation & tooling
• -- Experience with additional automation tools/frameworks such as Playwright, Cypress, TOSCA , or similar.
• -- Experience with API testing (e. g. , Postman, REST clients, or
  - based API tests).
• -- Familiarity with performance testing tools (e. g. , Locust, JMeter, k6).
• -- Experience with BDD practices and Gherkin syntax (feature files, scenarios).
• -- Familiarity with test management tools and plugins such as Zephyr for Jira (test case management, traceability).
• -- Practical exposure to the Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC) and related QA processes.

• Domain & AI
• -- Experience testing AI / ML-based systems (e. g. LLM tools, recommendation engines, search/ranking).

Location & relocation

We’re especially interested in candidates who are:

• Already based in the Algarve and seeking an international engineering/product environment, or
• EU / EEA / Swiss / Brazilian citizens (or others with the right to work in Portugal without sponsorship ) interested in relocating to the Algarve .

How You Work (About You)

You’ll thrive here if you:

• Have 3+ years in a professional software development environment and enjoy working closely with engineers (especially around backend & APIs).
• Are interested and excited by the challenges and opportunities of startup life : changing requirements, fast iteration, and high impact.
• See quality as a shared responsibility , not just a final gate.
• Are curious and systematic , and you enjoy exploring how features (and AI models) can fail in
  - world scenarios.
• Care about clarity — in test cases, automation code, bug reports, and communication with teammates.
• Communicate well with cross-functional teams and are comfortable clarifying requirements and testing expectations.
• Participate actively in agile rituals and like having a say in what gets shipped and how.
• Are always looking for ways to improve testing processes, tools, coverage, and automation frameworks , not just execute predefined scripts.
• Value taking initiative and getting things done over rigid processes.

If you’re energized by the idea of ensuring quality for a mission-driven, AI-focused fintech , and you’d like to grow your QA/automation career in the Algarve, we’d love to hear from you.