Job Description – Mobile QA Automation Engineer (Appium / Gaming)
Location: [Hyderabad / Hybrid]
Employment Type: Contract to hire (6 months)
About the Company
Redelk Studios Pvt. Ltd. is building a professional test automation platform for mobile ]game testing. Our platform combines embedded game engine SDKs with network-based orchestration to enable end-to-end test automation across Android and iOS for Unity and Unreal games. We are solving one of the hardest unsolved problems in QA — reliable, scriptable automation for interactive mobile games.
About the Role
We are looking for a hands-on Mobile QA Automation Engineer with deep expertise in Appium to develop and improve the Appium-based automation workflows and SDKs that power our platform. You will work as a core member of the platform engineering team to:
- Develop and improve Appium-based workflows, SDKs, and the Python test driver that game studios use
- Drive standardization by bringing established Appium patterns and conventions into the platform's APIs
- Design and build reliable cross-platform automation (Android + iOS) for session management, device lifecycle, and dialog handling
This is primarily a platform development role. Your deep knowledge of Appium APIs, mobile automation patterns, and cross-platform device handling will directly shape the platform's architecture and developer experience. You will also write test scripts for game teams as a secondary responsibility — both to validate the platform and to ensure it meets real-world testing needs.
Key Responsibilities
Platform Development (Primary)
- Develop and improve the Python test driver SDK — design new commands, enhance existing APIs, and build Appium-based workflows for cross-platform mobile game testing
- Drive API standardization — bring established Appium conventions (locator strategies, wait mechanisms, element state management, session handling) into the platform's test client
- Build Appium integration layers — session management, capabilities configuration, native dialog handling, app lifecycle management (install, launch, terminate) for both Android and iOS
- Develop cloud device farm integrations — build and maintain provider-agnostic abstractions for running tests on cloud mobile device providers
- Handle cross-platform differences in the SDK — Android intents/extras, iOS launch arguments, platform-specific permission flows, screen resolution adaptation
- Improve test infrastructure tooling — CI/CD pipeline integration (Jenkins, GitHub Actions), test artifact management, result reporting
- Debug and resolve platform issues by analyzing Appium server logs, WebSocket communication traces, device logs (adb logcat / Xcode Console), and game engine logs
Test Automation (Secondary)
- Write automated test scripts in Python to validate platform features and serve as reference implementations for game studio teams
- Design and execute test plans covering gameplay loops, UI navigation, scene transitions, input handling (tap, drag, swipe), and in-game state validation
- Build regression suites that stress-test the platform across real devices, OS versions, and screen densities
- Collaborate with game development teams to understand real-world testing needs and translate them into platform capabilities
Required Skills & Experience
4–6 years of hands-on mobile test automation experience
- Strong Appium expertise — UiAutomator2 (Android) and XCUITest (iOS) drivers, capabilities configuration, session management, element locator strategies (ID, XPath, Accessibility ID, UIAutomator selectors, iOS Class Chain, iOS Predicate String)
- Python proficiency — writing structured test suites using unittest / pytest , working with WebSocket clients, handling async operations
- Real device testing on both Android and iOS — connecting physical devices, provisioning profiles, handling device fragmentation
- Experience with cloud mobile device providers — running tests on cloud device farms, configuring capabilities for cloud execution, debugging remote device issues
- CI/CD pipeline integration — triggering test runs from Jenkins / GitHub Actions, interpreting results, managing test artifacts
- Strong debugging skills — reading Appium logs, device logs (adb logcat), analyzing test failure root causes systematically
- Understanding of mobile app lifecycle — install, launch with arguments, permission handling, app termination, session cleanup
- Git proficiency — branching, pull requests, code review workflows
Nice to Have Skills
- Unity or Unreal Engine familiarity — understanding game object hierarchies, scenes, coordinate systems
- C# scripting — ability to read and contribute to game engine SDK code
- WebSocket protocol understanding — debugging real-time communication between test client, server, and game SDK
- Performance testing — FPS monitoring, memory profiling, identifying performance regressions during gameplay
- Experience with game testing tools — AltTester, Airtest/Poco, or similar
- Docker / containerized test environments
- Network debugging — Wireshark, Charles Proxy, understanding tunneling for cloud device farms
What You'll Work With
Test Scripts: Python, unittest / pytest, proprietary test driver API
Mobile Automation: Appium 3.x, UiAutomator2, XCUITest
Device Farms: Cloud mobile device providers, local Appium Device Farm
Game Engines: Unity (primary), Unreal (secondary)
Version Control: Day-to-Day Examples Git, GitHub
Day-to-Day Examples
- Design and implement a new wait_for_element_state() command in the Python SDK, modeled after Appium's expected conditions pattern, with support for custom timeouts and polling intervals
- Build a provider-agnostic cloud device farm integration that abstracts away differences between cloud providers for session creation, app upload, and tunnel configuration
- Investigate why the iOS permission dialog handler fails on iOS 18 — trace through the Appium XCUITest driver logs, update the element locator strategies, and ship a fix in the SDK
- Write a reference test suite for a game studio that demonstrates best practices — proper setup/teardown, screenshot-on-failure, adaptive coordinate handling across screen sizes
- Refactor the Appium session management layer to support automatic reconnection and session recovery when cloud device farm connections drop mid-test
Soft Skills
- Systematic debugging and problem solving — mobile test failures can be cryptic and platform-specific
- Clear written communication — test plans, detailed bug reports with reproduction steps
- Self-driven ownership — you'll own test quality for game releases
- Collaborative mindset — working with game developers, SDK engineers, and DevOps
Education
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Game Development, or a related field.
- Equivalent work experience in test automation for software or games will also be considered.
Why Join Us?
- Build the automation platform, not just use one — your Appium expertise directly shapes the product's APIs and architecture
- Solve a hard, unsolved problem — reliable test automation for interactive mobile games
- See your work used by game studios to ship better games faster
- Small, technical team where your work has outsized impact
- Exposure to the full stack — from game engine SDKs to Python test clients to backend services