Rowan Kendal
Senior QA Automation Engineer · Team Lead
AI is a force multiplier, but you still need an engineer who knows what to multiply. I close the gap between intent, requirements, expectations, and reality before it costs stakeholders anything. I give teams confidence to keep shipping across Web, API, Mobile, Web3 and Blockchain.
With five years of experience in the automation space, I focus on building the infrastructure that allows engineering teams to ship code rapidly and with total confidence. My background aligns perfectly with modern engineering cultures: I have successfully led migrations from legacy Selenium setups to fast, modern Playwright frameworks, built custom MCP tooling to integrate AI capabilities directly into our SDLC and TMS, and engineered real-time monitoring dashboards to track pipeline health. I thrive on mentoring teams, automating complex business logic, and treating QA as a high-velocity engineering discipline.
Download ResumeQuality Engineering, AI-Augmented
I've run AI-assisted testing in production. I know where it delivers and where it breaks down. I build quality systems architected to work with AI: predictable outputs, structured contracts, and guardrails that keep AI-assisted workflows reliable at scale.
AI-Ready Test Architecture
Designed test frameworks with structured outputs and deterministic assertions that AI agents can generate, run, and interpret without manual intervention.
Agent Guardrails & Consistency
Built guardrails that enforce reliability and repeatability for AI-generated test actions, preventing hallucinations from reaching production.
AI-Augmented Workflow
Daily use of Cursor, Claude Code, and LLM tooling to accelerate test authoring, root-cause analysis, and coverage gap detection.
RAG & Local Model Integration
Hands-on experience with LangChain, Chroma (vector store), and Ollama for building context-aware tooling in quality workflows.
Experience
QA Automation Showcase
View all on GitHubMulti-platform automation infrastructure covering Web, API, Mobile, Desktop, and CI/CD, built to be expandable and production-ready.
Playwright + Pytest automation audit for a Notch AI email triage system. Gates G1-G4 covering sender, subject, body, and AI reply. 70 test cases across 14 suites.
Multi-platform automation showcase using Selenium + TestNG. Covers Web, API, Mobile, Desktop, and Electron apps with Page Object Model and Allure reporting.
Selenium + PyTest + Allure automation framework for DCentralLab crypto products. Page Object Model pattern.
Cypress tests for the LabOS web app with backend verifications. TypeScript, Page Object Model.
Testing Vicarius.io with Selenium & TestNG written in Java.
Cypress API and UI tests for WeatherAPI service, including API and UI automation.
How I Work
Pre-Development Involvement
Requirement gap analysis, risk identification, and test scenario mapping before development begins. Catching ambiguity early costs nothing. Catching it in production costs everything.
Parametrized Coverage
One test script runs every variation of a business flow. Change the inputs, cover the edge cases, no duplicate scripts.
Coverage Architecture
Not all test cases are equal. I map suites to risk dimensions - semantic boundaries, gate interactions, encoding edge cases - so coverage gaps are visible before the audit, not after.
AI-Accelerated Scripting
Tests ship same day as features, not days after. AI-assisted generation and MCP integration close the gap between dev and QA. For AI-driven features: testing behavioral boundaries, consistency within tolerance, and failure modes rather than exact output assertions.
Shift-Left by Default
Bugs caught pre-production cost a fraction of what they cost post-release. Zero slipped to production undetected.
Risk-Based Triage
Before blocking a release, I weigh three things: severity when it hits, the real user volume behind the failure rate, and reproducibility. Not every bug blocks. Not every block is obvious. The call is always documented with PM sign-off, so "we decided not to block" and "we didn't know" stay two very different conversations.
“AI writes code faster than traditional QA can keep up. Script-based automation breaks constantly. The teams that win are adopting intelligent, adaptive testing.”
— Israel-IT.org, 2026
Skills
AI-Enabled QA
Experience using AI tools to improve quality processes.
SaaS Experience
Hands-on testing across modern SaaS and enterprise environments.
Test Frameworks
End-to-end, integration, and API test coverage. UI automation through to contract testing, with mocking and assertion libraries for every layer.
Languages
Test automation, scripting, and tooling across backend, frontend, and data layers.
CI/CD & Infrastructure
Automated test pipelines with parallel execution and containerised runs integrated at every stage of the deployment workflow.
Performance & Monitoring
Load testing across throughput, latency, and stability under stress. Production observability with alert pipelines and post-release regression tracking.
Security Testing
Permission boundary testing, API auth bypass attempts, vulnerability scanning, and secrets management.
AI & ML Tools
AI tools integrated into QA workflows for test generation, log analysis, and coverage gap analysis. Applied to testing non-deterministic systems.
Databases
Validating integrations across relational, NoSQL, and search data layers.
Cloud & APIs
Cross-stack familiarity for REST, GraphQL, and cloud environment validation.
Watch It Run
Pick a suite. See how it moves.
What People Say
Rowan is the kind of QA engineer every product team needs but rarely finds. At DcentraLab, his technical depth and attention to detail caught issues before they ever reached production, protecting our users and the business from real consequences. He built test infrastructure that scaled with us, and his AI-augmented workflow only made him faster. I recommend Rowan without hesitation to any team serious about shipping reliable software.
CEO, DcentraLab · June 2026
Rowan is more than a team lead. He covers every stage of the testing cycle from spec to release, and his attention to detail goes beyond reviewing work. He takes ownership of quality across the whole product. Working with Rowan is straightforward: things get done properly. His expertise and commitment make him an asset to any team that takes QA seriously.
Automation Engineer, DcentraLab · January 2026
I had the pleasure of taking ownership of a Cypress testing suite created entirely by Rowan, and he left the code in impeccable condition. It was left untouched and running daily in production for 12+ months, and adding new features to it was a joy as a developer.
Full Stack Developer, Cymbio · October 2024
Rowan helped me with a few private lessons in Selenium + Python. Knows and understands the material. Many thanks for the help!
QA Engineer, AudioCodes · January 2022
Education
Blockchain Expert
UpcomingStarting June 2026
Professional blockchain certification combining technological and economic knowledge with regulation and taxation. Accredited by Israel's Information Technologies Chamber.
Quality Assurance Test Automation
2021
Animation & Game Design
2015 – 2017
Certificates
LinkedIn Learning · Hover a node for details
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Projects
Let's talk
Available for senior QA and automation roles. Particularly interested in teams building on Web3, AI, or high-velocity stacks.