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QA Staff / QA Lead CV

Tiago Silva

Quality Engineering Lead / Staff QA

AI-Augmented Delivery Systems · Automation Architecture · Shift-Left Quality Strategy

Quality Engineering Lead with Senior, Staff and Lead QA experience across SaaS, fintech, marketplace, ecommerce, media, open banking and enterprise platforms. I help teams improve release confidence by turning quality into an engineering system: clearer risk visibility, stronger automation architecture, faster CI feedback, better test ownership and practical AI-assisted workflows.

[email protected]LinkedIn
Brazil / Remote
Portfolio
Professional photo of Tiago Silva

Leadership Summary

Leadership impact at a glance

Quality Leadership

Owns quality strategy, risk visibility, release confidence and engineering standards.

Staff-Level Engineering Impact

Designs validation architecture across UI, API, contract, integration, CI/CD and production feedback layers.

AI-Augmented QA

Uses AI-assisted workflows to support test analysis, automation improvement, knowledge retrieval and delivery diagnostics.

Delivery Systems

Improves how teams validate change, shorten feedback loops and prevent false confidence from green builds.

Professional Profile

Professional profile

I am a hands-on Quality Engineering Lead / Staff QA with deep experience building automation platforms, validation architecture, CI/CD quality gates, API and UI test strategies, and shift-left practices.

My strongest value is helping engineering teams understand what should be tested, where it should be tested, how risk should be exposed, and how validation should support delivery speed instead of slowing it down.

I have led QA strategy, mentored QA and engineering teams, created automation frameworks from scratch, improved CI/CD feedback loops, introduced contract and integration testing approaches, supported accessibility and security validation, and explored AI-assisted workflows for engineering support. I work as a multiplier across QA, engineering, product and design rather than as an isolated test owner.

Leadership Strengths

Leadership strengths

Quality strategy ownership

Owns practical quality direction across teams: risk, test layers, automation standards, release confidence, CI/CD integration and engineering alignment.

People leadership

Line-managed QA engineers, supported career development, recruitment, performance, team morale and distributed team coordination.

Shift-left execution

Moves validation earlier through better story definition, API-first checks, component/system tests, seeded environments, mocks/stubs, contract checks and PR-level feedback.

Automation architecture

Builds scalable automation frameworks across Playwright, Cypress, Selenium, CodeceptJS, TestCafe, Appium, REST APIs, GraphQL, Pact, Postman/Newman and CI/CD pipelines.

AI-assisted engineering

Applies AI and local LLM experimentation to quality workflows, including test analysis, automation support, knowledge retrieval, delivery diagnostics and engineering productivity.

Delivery reliability

Focuses on reducing false confidence, flaky feedback, long execution times, unclear ownership, production escapes and release hesitation.

AI-Assisted Quality Engineering

AI-assisted quality engineering

My AI work focuses on practical engineering leverage: faster investigation, better project context, stronger automation support and more scalable QA workflows.

Local AI assistant architecture

Designed a local AI assistant direction using local LLMs, voice interaction, structured memory, project context and tool-oriented orchestration.

AI-assisted QA workflows

Explored AI support for test analysis, failure investigation, test review, automation improvement and delivery diagnostics.

RAG and knowledge systems

Worked on structured knowledge ingestion, embeddings, retrieval and source-aware project context for engineering support.

QA MCP / tool orchestration

Explored tool orchestration patterns connecting QA workflows with Playwright, databases, Jira, Git providers, Datadog, Slack and local project context.

AI for delivery intelligence

Uses AI-assisted analysis to detect weak signals such as unclear requirements, CI blind spots, flaky tests, environment mismatch and production feedback gaps.

Distributed Systems Quality

How I evaluate scalable systems

Core question

How hard is it to change safely?

I evaluate distributed systems by looking at both speed of change and safety of change. Slow releases can reveal coupling, fragile pipelines, unreliable environments or low trust. Fast releases with frequent customer issues can reveal weak validation.

Speed vs Safety Matrix

Slow + Safe

Controlled but heavy

Release process may be safe, but friction, approvals, slow pipelines or low trust can limit delivery speed.

Fast + Safe

Target state

Healthy delivery system

Teams can release frequently with meaningful validation, clear ownership and controlled risk.

Slow + Unsafe

Fragile delivery system

The system is difficult to change and still leaks risk. This often points to coupling, poor environments or weak ownership.

Fast + Unsafe

Fast but risky

Delivery is quick, but validation is weak. Customer issues, hidden flag states or production-only failures may leak through.

My target is not just faster delivery. It is faster safe change.

I assess where quality risk appears across service boundaries, data flow, async jobs, feature flags, CI/CD, environments, test data, observability and ownership — especially in the gaps between teams, services and assumptions.

Speed versus safety

What I look for

Release frequency, lead time, pipeline reliability, environment stability, approval friction and team confidence before release.

Why it matters

Release patterns reveal whether teams are constrained by coupling and fragile pipelines, or by weak validation masking risk behind speed.

End-to-end ownership

What I look for

Who owns the complete customer/business flow across frontend, backend, APIs, queues, third parties, analytics, support visibility and rollback handling.

Why it matters

The most dangerous failures often happen when frontend, backend, DevOps, QA, product, data and support each own a piece, but nobody owns the full customer or business flow. Distributed systems can look healthy in pieces while still failing as a product.

Validation layering

What I look for

Whether each risk is tested at the cheapest, fastest and most reliable layer: unit, component, API, contract, integration, E2E, smoke, observability or production feedback.

Why it matters

When an E2E test fails, I ask: why did it fail, and why was it not caught earlier? E2E tests should be thin, critical and intentional — confirming critical journeys, not carrying the full burden of quality.

Contracts and dependency control

What I look for

Service agreements, provider/consumer expectations, mocks, stubs, contract tests, broker discipline, versioning and integration coverage.

Why it matters

Mocks and stubs expose controlled failure scenarios, but overuse can create fantasy confidence. Contract and integration tests keep isolated validation connected to reality.

Async and hidden behavior

What I look for

Queues, jobs, retries, delayed side effects, partial completion, idempotency, recovery paths, logging and alert ownership.

Why it matters

Async failures rarely appear cleanly. They can be delayed, retried silently, partially completed or hidden in logs nobody checks.

Feature flags and progressive delivery

What I look for

Flag ownership, expiry, cleanup, rollout paths, fallback behavior, segmentation, environment drift and interaction between related flags.

Why it matters

Feature flags separate deployment from release, but they do not remove risk. They move risk into configuration, segmentation and behavior management. Without ownership, expiry and cleanup, flags create hidden product states that CI may never validate.

CI/CD reality check

What I look for

Whether the pipeline validates meaningful risk or only proves that scripts ran successfully.

Why it matters

A green pipeline means the system passed the checks we designed. It does not automatically mean the release is safe.

Observability as feedback

What I look for

Logs, metrics, dashboards, alerts, failed jobs, third-party instability, feature flag behavior, customer-impact signals and escaped defects.

Why it matters

Observability should not only show that production is broken. It should teach the team which risks need to move earlier into unit, component, API, contract, E2E or smoke coverage.

Validation pipeline: from change to production learning

Target: faster safe change

E2E confirms the assembled system. It should not carry the full burden of quality.

  1. Map the change

    Scope affected services, users, data, jobs, flags and business flows.

    • Scope
    • Ownership
    • Risk
    • Flow

  2. Validate early

    Push logic, rules and edge cases into the fastest reliable layers.

    • Unit
    • Component
    • API
    • Test data

  3. Protect boundaries

    Verify service agreements without hiding real integration risk.

    • Contracts
    • Broker
    • Mocks
    • Stubs

  4. Confirm journeys

    Use thin E2E only for critical customer and business paths.

    • Thin E2E
    • Signup
    • Payment
    • Admin

  5. Verify release

    Check deployment, configuration, routing, auth, flags and rollback paths.

    • Smoke
    • CI/CD
    • Config
    • Flags

  6. Learn from reality

    Feed logs, metrics, alerts and escaped defects back into test strategy.

    • Observability
    • Logs
    • Metrics
    • Alerts

Learn from realityTest strategy

Production feedback improves earlier validation.

My Staff QA approach is to identify where quality, speed, confidence and risk are leaking across the delivery flow, then tune the validation strategy so teams get earlier feedback, clearer ownership and safer releases without turning QA into a bottleneck.

Professional Experience

Selected experience

TeamStation

Aug 2024 — Present

Senior QA / Quality Systems Lead · Remote

Designing validation architecture and delivery reliability systems for large-scale web, backend and mobile-adjacent product areas.

Key contributions

  • Owns quality practices, risk mitigation and automation strategy for the web team.
  • Created and evolved E2E automation using CodeceptJS, Puppeteer and Playwright.
  • Implemented REST API test framework and early API validation coverage.
  • Built supporting infrastructure including mail helpers, SQL helpers and Page Object patterns.
  • Integrated automated checks into Jenkins CI/CD to improve feedback speed and reduce manual dependency.
  • Designed a local LaunchDarkly management and control solution to support feature-flag validation, environment setup and progressive delivery testing.
  • Applied AI-assisted thinking to test analysis, delivery diagnostics and automation improvement opportunities.

Focus areas

CodeceptJSPlaywrightPuppeteerREST APISQLJenkinsCI/CDLaunchDarklyFeature FlagsMocksStubsAutomation StrategyAI-assisted QA

Scalis

Apr 2024 — Jun 2024

Lead QA · Remote

Formal QA Leadership

Led the creation of a modern validation foundation across frontend, API, CI/CD, security and accessibility.

Key contributions

  • Owned quality strategy, automation direction and CI/CD test integration.
  • Created Python + Playwright E2E framework from scratch.
  • Dockerised the framework and integrated it with GitHub Actions.
  • Implemented REST API E2E tests in Python.
  • Added security and accessibility checks across XSS/SQL injection risk, keyboard navigation and contrast.

Focus areas

PythonPlaywrightGitHub ActionsDockerREST APISecurityAccessibilityCI/CDLeadership

Klir

Aug 2023 — Apr 2024

Senior QA / Automation Strategy · Remote

Led quality improvements around PR-level feedback, automation architecture and cross-platform validation for web, mobile and APIs.

Key contributions

  • Owned web quality practices, risk mitigation and automation strategy.
  • Mentored and contributed across Web, Mobile and API integration frameworks.
  • Reassessed an existing C# + Playwright approach and moved the team toward Cypress based on maintainability and team skillset.
  • Implemented Web + API tests, Docker Compose setup and Azure Pipeline configuration.
  • Added Cucumber to WebdriverIO mobile tests and integrated BrowserStack.
  • Created PR-level validation environments using account creation and SQL seeding for isolated integration testing.

Focus areas

CypressPlaywrightC#JavaScriptAzure PipelinesDocker ComposeWebdriverIOBrowserStackSQLShift-leftMentoring

Depop

Mar 2022 — Aug 2023

Senior QA / Delivery Quality · London

Improved release confidence and engineering feedback loops through audits, CI validations, accessibility, visual testing and operational quality practices.

Key contributions

  • Owned quality practices, risk mitigation and product standards for the web team.
  • Led a quality audit that produced aligned team actions to reduce production risk.
  • Helped the team use quality and operational feedback to prioritise engineering effort and reduce production risk.
  • Added DangerJS CI checks to enforce ticket traceability before code entered the system.
  • Integrated visual comparison testing with Percy / BrowserStack.

Focus areas

CypressJestDangerJSPercyBrowserStackAccessibilityCIRelease QualityRisk Mitigation

Hopin

May 2021 — Mar 2022

Staff Test Engineer · Remote

Formal QA Leadership

Supported high-velocity delivery by helping teams test earlier, choose the right validation layer and become more self-sufficient.

Key contributions

  • Maintained E2E framework using TestCafe, JavaScript and TypeScript.
  • Guided teams on testing best practices and shift-left validation.
  • Helped teams become self-sufficient in choosing the right validation layer and owning test decisions earlier in delivery.
  • Implemented Rails system tests using Capybara, Selenium and RSpec to validate before deployment.
  • Used factories and traits to improve speed and reliability without compromising coverage.

Focus areas

Staff TERailsReactTestCafeTypeScriptCapybaraSeleniumRSpecAccessibilityShift-left

Yapily

Aug 2020 — Apr 2021

Senior QA / API Integration · London

Built integration validation for API-heavy open banking flows with stronger CI feedback and controlled dependency testing.

Key contributions

  • Implemented integration test framework using Java, Rest-Assured, Serenity and Selenium.
  • Added Postman/Newman validation into CI.
  • Introduced Hoverfly mocks to reduce dependency on live consent flows and external service availability.

Focus areas

JavaRest-AssuredSerenitySeleniumPostmanNewmanHoverflyAPI TestingCI

Travelex

Oct 2019 — Jun 2020

Lead QA · London

Formal QA Leadership

Owned backend-platform QA strategy while leading QA engineers across delivery, CI/CD refinement, contract testing and distributed team coordination.

Key contributions

  • Managed QA engineers across career development, recruitment, performance, morale and team structure.
  • Owned QA strategy across the backend platform, aligning quality expectations with engineering delivery.
  • Worked with external QA teams to ensure the right skills, mindset and execution standards were in place.
  • Mentored QA and backend engineers on test strategy, automation practices and quality ownership.
  • Refined CI/CD validation and backend test execution to improve release confidence.
  • Worked across component, integration and contract testing using Pact.
  • Improved coordination between London and Moldova teams.
  • Reduced test execution time without compromising coverage.

Focus areas

Lead QALine ManagementQA StrategyMentoringBackend QACI/CDJavaAWSJenkinsDockerDatadogSnykPactContract TestingDistributed Teams

Earlier Roles

Earlier experience

Farmdrop

Mar 2019 — Oct 2019

Senior QA / Framework Builder

Built validation foundations for REST, GraphQL and web flows, integrating automated checks into CI/CD.

GraphQLREST APIRubySeleniumCypressDockerCI

Rated People

Nov 2017 — Jan 2019

Senior QA / Automation Mentor

Built UI, API, visual comparison and mobile automation frameworks while mentoring QA engineers across continuous delivery.

RubySeleniumCapybaraAppiumAWSDockerBambooMentoringCD

Elsevier / Mendeley / ScienceDirect

Mar 2016 — Jun 2017

Senior QA

Built automation foundations across web and API validation while supporting accessibility, exploratory and security testing.

RubyJavaScriptSeleniumCucumberRSpecJavaAccessibilitySecurity

Porto Tech Center

Jan 2015 — Mar 2016

Junior QA

Started automation engineering foundations across Ruby, Selenium, Watir and BDD-style frameworks.

RubySeleniumWatirCucumberRSpecScrumKanban

Selected Systems Work

Selected systems work

Validation architecture

Designed test strategies across unit, component, API, contract, integration, UI and production feedback layers, including isolated or seeded environments for shift-left feedback.

Outcomes

Clearer ownership · Faster feedback · Lower release risk

CI/CD quality gates

Embedded automated checks into Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure Pipelines and other delivery systems to improve confidence before release.

Outcomes

Earlier defect discovery · Safer deployments · Better engineering alignment

Contract and integration testing

Applied API, component, integration and contract validation approaches to reduce risk between services and teams.

Outcomes

Earlier compatibility checks · Lower integration risk · More controlled dependencies

AI-assisted quality workflows

Explored local AI, RAG, tool orchestration and project-aware assistants to support test investigation, delivery diagnostics and automation productivity.

Outcomes

Faster analysis · Better project context · More scalable QA support

Technical Stack

Technical stack

Languages

TypeScriptJavaScriptPythonRubyJavaC#SQL

Automation

PlaywrightCypressSeleniumCodeceptJSTestCafeWebdriverIOAppiumCapybaraWatirCucumberRSpecJest

API / Integration

REST APIGraphQLRest-AssuredHTTPartyPostmanNewmanPactHoverflyMocksStubs

Architecture context

Monolith-to-microservice transitionsService boundariesIntegration riskContract testingDependency control

CI/CD and DevOps

JenkinsGitHub ActionsGitLab CIAzure PipelinesBambooDockerDocker ComposeBrowserStackPercy

Observability / Quality

DatadogLogz.ioAccessibility TestingSecurity ValidationBurp SuiteSnykVisual RegressionRisk Analysis

AI / Engineering Productivity

Local LLMsOllamaRAG conceptsEmbeddingsAI-assisted QATool orchestrationProject context retrievalPrompt engineering

Education

Academic background

Computer Engineering

Polytechnic Institute of Guarda

2008 — 2013

Erasmus Exchange

Anadolu University, Turkey

2012

Level 3 Computer Technician Course

Technical Education