Swapnil Patil
LinkedIn Profile
Swapnil Patil
Principal Quality Engineering Architect | Platform Automation, Performance Engineering & Release Governance
Executive Summary
Contact Information
Phone: 714-307-4266
Email: patilswapnilqa@gmail.com
Location: United States (Remote/Hybrid)
LinkedIn: View Profile
Principal Quality Engineering Architect | 15+ Years
  • Architect quality platforms delivering decision-grade signals for release readiness across enterprise programs supporting 50+ distributed engineers.
  • Design CI/CD quality gates, observability strategies, and governance frameworks enabling high-velocity delivery without compromising reliability
  • Pioneer AI-augmented engineering practices achieving 40-50% productivity gains while establishing guardrails and maintaining quality standards
Quality Engineering Platform Capabilities
End-to-end ownership of quality platforms spanning automation, performance, data, and release governance.
This section details end-to-end platform ownership across multiple quality engineering domains:
UI Automation Platforms
Enterprise-scale frameworks with intelligent element strategies, parallel execution, and self-healing mechanisms.
API & Microservices Testing
Comprehensive platforms covering REST, GraphQL, contract testing, and service virtualization with backward compatibility gates.
Performance & Scalability Engineering
Continuous performance pipelines with baselines, SLA monitoring, and capacity planning integrated into CI/CD.
Data Validation & ETL Testing
Automated validation frameworks for transformations, reconciliation, and business rule verification across batch and real-time streams.
Mobile Testing Strategy
iOS and Android quality strategies with device coverage matrices and platform-specific validation approaches.
CI/CD Quality Gates & Release Governance
Multi-stage quality gates with automated checks for code quality, security, deployment readiness, and go/no-go criteria.
Observability & Production Quality Signals
APM integration, synthetic monitoring, and alerting frameworks creating feedback loops from production to pre-production testing.
Quality Platform Flow
1
Code Commit
2
CI Pipeline
3
Quality Gates
4
Quality Signals
5
Go/No-Go Decision
6
Production Deployment
7
Observability Feedback
Technical Stack & Tools
Comprehensive technology portfolio spanning automation frameworks, performance engineering, DevOps toolchains, cloud platforms, and AI-augmented development tools.
Core Engineering
Java, C#, Python, JavaScript, PL/SQL, REST APIs, JSON/XML, Maven, Git
Automation & API
Selenium WebDriver, TestNG, JUnit, Cucumber BDD, Rest Assured, Postman, Page Object Model, Contract Testing
Performance & Reliability
JMeter, BlazeMeter, LoadRunner, APM Integration, Synthetic Monitoring, Observability Dashboards
CI/CD, Cloud & AI
GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, SonarQube, GitHub Copilot, Cursor AI, ChatGPT
Engineering Focus Areas
Platform Architecture
Design and scale quality platforms serving distributed teams across UI, API, performance, and data domains.
Release Engineering
Architect CI/CD quality gates and release governance enabling high-velocity delivery.
Performance Strategy
Establish performance testing, capacity planning, and observability validating enterprise scalability.
AI-Augmented Practices
Pioneer AI-assisted development achieving measurable productivity gains with quality guardrails.
Team Leadership
Lead distributed SDET organizations through technical authority and cross-functional influence.
Quality Governance
Define quality standards, maturity models, and governance frameworks adopted across engineering.
Professional Experience
Recent Execution Highlights (2022 - Present)
Framework Architecture & Design Decisions
  • Architected modular automation platform for UI, API, and batch validation scalable across multiple product lines
  • Implemented intelligent retry mechanisms and self-healing locators reducing test flakiness by 60%
  • Built reusable test libraries accelerating new test development by 60% across distributed teams
CI/CD Integration & Quality Gates
  • Designed multi-stage GitLab CI pipelines with quality gates at build, test, and deployment phases
  • Integrated static code analysis, contract testing, and security scanning into automated workflows
  • Implemented automated rollback triggers based on quality thresholds and production health signals
Performance Engineering Strategy
  • Architected enterprise performance testing strategy covering load, stress, endurance, and spike scenarios
  • Established continuous performance pipelines using JMeter and BlazeMeter integrated into CI/CD
  • Developed performance baselines and SLA monitoring frameworks validating scalability at enterprise scale
Quality Metrics & Governance
  • Defined automation maturity KPIs: test coverage, execution stability, defect escape rate, and MTTR
  • Designed real-time quality dashboards providing visibility into release readiness and risk assessment
  • Implemented DoD frameworks and RCA protocols with predictive quality models using historical data
AI-Augmented Engineering Practices
  • Pioneered adoption of GitHub Copilot, Cursor AI, and ChatGPT across 20+ engineers
  • Achieved 40-50% reduction in script development effort and 70% reduction in debugging time
  • Established prompt engineering standards and AI code review guidelines building organizational competency
40-50%
Script Development
Reduced automation script development effort through AI-assisted coding practices
70%
Debugging Time
Cut debugging and troubleshooting time with intelligent code analysis
Code Quality
Improved
Improved overall code quality through enhanced standards and peer review processes
Leadership, Governance & Organizational Influence
Exercising technical leadership through governance frameworks, hiring authority, standards enforcement, and cross-functional enablement that shapes organizational quality culture and engineering practices.
Interview Panel & Hiring Authority
  • Serve as senior technical interviewer for SDET, Senior SDET, Lead, and Architect roles
  • Evaluate candidates on automation framework design, coding proficiency, and CI/CD understanding
  • Review take-home assignments and provide hiring recommendations
  • Design interview rubrics and build capability maps for strategic hiring
Code Governance & Merge Review Ownership
  • Own merge review processes for automation codebases across multiple repositories
  • Enforce coding standards and architectural consistency through pull request reviews
  • Establish code quality gates using SonarQube and automated linting
  • Mentor engineers on clean code principles and framework extensibility
Quality Standards Definition & Enforcement
  • Define organizational quality standards spanning automation frameworks, test design, and release criteria
  • Establish Definition of Done (DoD) and Definition of Ready (DoR) frameworks
  • Design quality gate requirements for CI/CD pipelines
  • Build quality metrics dashboards providing visibility into automation health and release readiness
Cross-Team Enablement & Training
  • Design and deliver training programs on automation frameworks and AI-assisted development
  • Conduct workshops for 20+ engineers on quality engineering best practices
  • Create documentation, runbooks, and knowledge bases for framework usage
  • Establish communities of practice for automation engineers
Release Governance & Go/No-Go Authority
  • Participate in release governance boards providing quality assessment and recommendations
  • Analyze test results and production readiness signals to inform release decisions
  • Produce comprehensive release readiness reports for executive stakeholders
  • Define release criteria including automation pass rates and performance benchmarks
Cross-Functional Partnership & Influence
  • Collaborate with Engineering leadership to embed quality practices into development workflows
  • Partner with DevOps teams to architect CI/CD quality gates and deployment automation
  • Influence technical roadmaps to prioritize quality infrastructure investments
  • Drive cultural transformation from QA-as-gatekeeper to quality-as-shared-responsibility
AI-Augmented Engineering
Practical adoption of AI tools as engineering multipliers, achieving measurable productivity gains through established guardrails and quality standards.
01
Production Integration & Measurable Impact
Integrated GitHub Copilot, Cursor AI, and ChatGPT into daily workflows across test development, debugging, and code review. Achieved 40-50% reduction in script development time, 70% faster debugging cycles, and 60% improvement in code quality. Established that AI tools amplify engineering judgment rather than replace it, requiring human oversight for architectural decisions.
02
Guardrails & Quality Standards
Implemented mandatory human review for all AI-generated code before merge, with comprehensive testing requirements. Defined acceptable use policies covering code ownership, security review, and intellectual property. Trained engineers on AI limitations including model inaccuracies and framework-specific gaps. Demonstrated that productivity gains come from eliminating toil, not cutting corners, with AI-assisted code meeting or exceeding quality standards.
03
Organizational Enablement
Designed and delivered training programs for 20+ engineers covering tool capabilities, effective usage patterns, and best practices. Evaluated emerging tools through proof-of-concept assessments measuring accuracy, reliability, and ROI. Provided leadership with data-driven recommendations on tool adoption and organizational rollout strategies. Built communities of practice for sharing techniques and lessons learned.
Career Progression & Enterprise Impact
Project Lead | AI-Driven Principal Quality Engineering Architect
Feb 2025 – Present | Remote | Persistent System
  • Lead enterprise-scale QE platforms across automation, performance engineering, API testing, and CI/CD quality gates for regulated fintech systems at director-level scope
  • Own QE strategy, platform architecture, release readiness governance, and cross-program execution
Sr Principal SDET | Automation Framework Architect
Oct 2022 – Feb 2025 | Remote | Ascensus
Owned enterprise automation architecture, API reliability, CI/CD readiness, and AI-assisted QE practices
Senior SDET
Sep 2016 – Oct 2022 | Harrisburg PA | PennDOT
Led automation and API testing for mission-critical government systems (RUF, BMS, ISAM)
SDET
Sep 2014 – Aug 2016 | Harrisburg PA | Acclaim System
Built and maintained automation frameworks for enterprise document and content management systems
Application Developer
Mar 2011 – Aug 2014 | Harrisburg PA | PennDOT
Full-stack development foundation (Java/.NET/PL-SQL) enabling later QE architecture leadership
Education, Certifications & Leadership
Education
Master of Science — Electrical & Electronics Engineering
University of Bridgeport (2008–2011)
Grade: A | President, Club of India
3rd Prize — Northeast US Poster Competition
Bachelor of Engineering — Electrical & Electronics Engineering
R.C. Patel Institute of Technology (2003–2007)
Grade: A
1st Prize — State Robotics Competition
1st Prize — National Project & Paper Competition
Professional Certifications
  • Cursor AI — Persistent Systems (2025)
  • FALCON Advance PM Program — Persistent (2025)
  • iAura — Persistent (2025)
  • GenAI Foundation — Persistent (2025)
  • GenAI Foundation & Prompt Engineering — Amazon (2025)
  • Introduction to Generative AI — Google Digital Academy (2025)
  • Prompt Engineering — Amazon CodeWhisperer (2025)
Leadership & Governance
Manage global SDET teams conducting daily standups, code reviews, and coaching sessions. Define organizational QE governance including DoD, RCA frameworks, automation maturity KPIs, and coding standards. Collaborate closely with Product, Dev, DevOps, Cloud, and Architecture teams for end-to-end quality alignment.
Community Contribution
Lead Sunday school teaching and youth mentoring programs. Conduct career guidance sessions for early professionals. Train teams on AI tools, automation standards, and engineering best practices. Produce educational content for YouTube/LinkedIn focused on automation, testing, and engineering mindset development.
Interview Panel & Hiring
Serve as senior interviewer for SDET/Sr SDET/Lead/Architect roles, evaluating automation frameworks, coding patterns, problem-solving skills, and CI/CD practices. Review take-home assignments and code samples. Provide staffing recommendations, build hiring rubrics, mentor new hires, and design capability uplift programs.
🏆 State Robotics Winner
First Prize — State-level Robotics Competition
🏆 National Project Winner
First Prize — National Project & Paper Competition
🏆 Regional Recognition
Third Prize — Northeast US Poster Competition
🏆 Client Excellence
Multiple appreciation awards for QE transformation and automation modernization