[Hiring] API and Front-End QA Automation Engineer @Global Fishing Watch

Role Description

Global Fishing Watch is looking for a talented, automation-first QA Engineer who is passionate about quality in software products and building products that matter. Our tools give users the ability to explore and analyze complex geospatial and temporal datasets through innovative, non-traditional interfaces — interactive maps, vessel tracking dashboards, analytical tools, and a growing public API platform.

Automation is the core of this position, but it might include some minor manual testing. The ideal candidate brings deep hands-on experience building robust, maintainable automated test suites for both front-end applications and APIs — and can demonstrate a track record of successfully integrating those suites into CI/CD pipelines.

You will work closely with the product team during story definition and with the engineering team throughout implementation. Your work will directly improve the reliability and confidence of our releases.

Products You Will Test

• Interactive maps showing vessel tracks, fishing activity heatmaps, encounters on the high seas, port visits, and carrier vessel activity — rendered through time using our latest map platform.
• Vessel identity and carrier vessel tracking features, including new layers and datasets added to GFW's core map over the past several years.
• The GFW Public/Private APIs — a major strategic expansion now providing external developers and researchers with programmatic access to GFW's datasets and services. API quality, reliability, and contract testing are a core responsibility of this role.
• Tools for users to upload, display, and analyze their own datasets alongside GFW's datasets.

Our Stack

• Testing: Playwright and Vitest (primary E2E and integration automation framework — required), Cypress (used on select products — experience is a plus), Selenium (legacy; knowledge helpful but not the focus), Jest and axios.
• Front-end: Modern JavaScript / TypeScript (ES6+), React (hooks) and Redux, Mapping and dataviz: Deck.gl, D3, turf, CSS3, CSS Modules.
• Backend & Infrastructure: Node.js (Nest and Koa), Go, Python, PostgreSQL, Clickhouse, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Docker, CI/CD: Google Cloud Build.
• Tooling & Collaboration: Git and GitHub, Postman.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain automated test suites for GFW's front-end products and public API — this is the primary and non-negotiable function of this role.
• Lead end-to-end test automation using Playwright, covering functional, regression, cross-browser, and performance scenarios.
• Own API test automation: write and maintain contract tests, functional tests, and integration tests for GFW's public and internal APIs.
• Integrate automated test suites into CI/CD pipelines (Cloudbuild), ensuring tests run reliably on every relevant trigger.
• Design and document test cases for user stories; validate acceptance criteria with the product team before implementation begins.
• Define and maintain test suite organization — smoke, regression, and full suites — and determine which cases warrant automation vs. manual execution.
• Run and maintain regression suites when new features are released or underlying data versions change.
• Conduct periodic regression runs on production environments.
• Work closely with the product team during user story definition to ensure testability and clear acceptance criteria from the start; Creating a test plan for every release.
• Report bugs clearly in the issue tracking system and follow up until resolution working closely with product to understand impact of the bug and define priority.
• Define, record, and report on QA metrics to assess coverage, test reliability, and areas of product risk.
• Advance GFW's overall QA strategy, tooling, and infrastructure over time.

Candidate Description

Required Technical Skills

• Automation is the core of this role. Candidates who cannot demonstrate hands-on automation experience will not be considered.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience building and maintaining automated test suites for production web applications — please be prepared to discuss specific projects and outcomes.
• Proven, recent experience with Playwright for end-to-end browser automation (required).
• Solid experience with API test automation: writing contract tests, functional API tests, and integration tests.
• Experience working in Agile teams with sprint-based delivery.
• Experience with CI/CD integration of automated tests (GitHub Actions or equivalent).
• Experience with performance and cross-browser testing.
• Experience with test plan and test case development, including defining what to automate vs. test manually.
• Willing to comb through a complex network of interdependent tools, resources, user roles, and permissions.
• Detail-oriented, with a mindset geared toward finding edge cases and breaking things.

Preferred Technical Skills

• Experience with Cypress in addition to Playwright.
• Experience testing non-traditional, data-heavy applications using maps, charts, heatmaps, or other data visualizations.
• Strong proficiency with Git and modern branching strategies.
• Familiarity with Docker and containerized test environments.
• Experience with cloud platforms, particularly Google Cloud Platform.
• Open-source collaboration experience.

Communication & Collaboration Skills

• Strong written and verbal communication in English — most day-to-day collaboration is async and written. Having also good verbal Spanish is a plus.
• Comfortable working remotely and independently in a small, fast-moving organization.
• Proactive and highly organized — owns tasks end-to-end without needing to be chased.
• Team player who is willing to teach and learn across disciplines.
• Intellectually curious and open to suggesting and evaluating new tools, approaches, or strategies.
• Flexible and able to adapt to shifting priorities and evolving requirements.
• Able to communicate clearly with a wide range of stakeholders — from engineers to product managers to senior leadership.
• Comfortable managing multiple ongoing tasks, sharing estimations, raising risks and meeting deadlines.

Additional Information

• Note: The application period for this role closes on April 15, 2026 00:00 CEST.
• Reporting to: Director, Technology and Engineering
• Manages: NA
• Please note: Visa sponsorship is not supported at this time.
• Location: This is a remote role, but candidates must be legally authorized and based in Argentina, Chile, Brazil or Colombia for this role.
• Permanent/Fixed Term/Contractor: Contractor
• Duration: 1 year with possibility of expansion.
• Full Time hours: Yes
• Compensation: A compensation range for this position is USD 30-40/h for Argentina, USD 30-35/h for Chile, USD 30-35/h for Brazil, and USD 30-35/h for Colombia.
• Equal opportunities: Global Fishing Watch is an equal opportunities employer.
• Accessibility and Accommodations: We are committed to ensuring an inclusive and accessible recruitment process.