Evgenii Subbotin
Quality & Engineering Lead · Senior SDET / TAE · SAFe RTE — 20 years specializing in enterprise-level quality frameworks, high-caliber QA/SDET team leadership, and measurable quality transformation across FinTech, iGaming, E-commerce & Travel.
My Philosophy
Automate It First — How I Work
Before writing a second manual step, I ask: can this be automated? Repetitive work is a defect in the workflow — a regression suite that takes a day to run, a sprint report assembled by hand, an onboarding process that lives in someone’s head. These are engineering problems, not facts of life.
My default is shift-left: embed quality early, gate it in the pipeline, measure the outcome. Every automation investment should pay back in accelerated delivery, reduced defect cost, or freed-up capacity for higher-value work. Metrics make the case; results sustain the culture.
AI-Driven — How I Learn & Research
I treat AI as a thought partner, not a shortcut. Prompting well is a skill — one I deliberately practice in my QA Lab using Claude and Copilot for framework scaffolding, test case generation, and coverage gap analysis. The goal is not to replace judgment but to amplify it: reach a working prototype faster, challenge assumptions earlier, iterate with less friction.
I apply the same evidence-based thinking to AI that I apply to testing: form a hypothesis, run the experiment, measure the output. AI tools earn their place the same way any QA instrument does — by what they actually deliver, not what their demos promise.
QA Lab — Living Product
The QA Lab is not a demo page — it’s a product I own and run. It serves as my proving ground for automation framework design, AI-assisted development, and DevOps practices: a place to prototype ideas at low risk before advocating for them at enterprise scale. Managed with a PMI-compliant charter, a living roadmap, and an open improvement backlog, it’s also where I sharpen AI-driven and DevOps delivery skills end-to-end.
Product & Roadmap
Governed as a real software product: Project Charter, Risk Register, Decision Records, prioritized backlog, quarterly roadmap themes. Delivery tracked with DORA metrics — measured against the same standards I apply to enterprise teams.
Live Automation Surface
A comprehensive set of interactive UI elements (forms, modals, tables, sliders) purpose-built as an automation target. Used to prototype and benchmark frameworks — Playwright, Selenium, Cypress, Testim — against real scenarios, not toy examples.
Blog & Findings
Write-ups on tool evaluations, AI experiment results, and DevOps integration patterns. Topics driven by what actually runs in the lab — Playwright vs Selenium, Claude for test generation, quality gates in Azure DevOps, Snyk CI integration and more.
Portfolio Projects
Browse all projects →Real-world engineering work — built, tested, and shipped. Click any project to explore the full technical story.
This Portfolio Site
S3 static architecture, CloudFront CDN, GitHub Actions CI/CD. Zero-cost infrastructure. Built to demonstrate engineering judgment, not just engineering knowledge.
QA Lab — Automation Testing Environment
Living browser automation target with 14+ interactive UI element types. Proving ground for Playwright, Selenium, Cypress, and AI-assisted testing. Managed with a PMI-compliant charter and living roadmap.
Enter QA Lab →Cross-Stack Test Automation
Five complete automation frameworks — Playwright TS, Pytest, Selenium Java, Cypress, Playwright C# — all targeting the same QA Lab surface. Enables direct, evidence-based comparison across languages, paradigms, and toolchains. 288 tests, all green, all CI-deployed.
Cross-Stack Performance Testing
Six distinct load testing instruments in seven deployments across five language ecosystems — each chosen to be ecosystem-native to its paired automation framework. Five embedded augmentations measuring SLO compliance against CloudFront. Two standalone investigations producing real degradation findings on Vercel and Railway free-tier infrastructure.
Engineering findings surfaced: Each of frameworks has unique insights and all findings are documented and can be re-used if applications moved to another environment.
REM Waste Booking Flow
Not just a test suite — a full-stack skip-hire booking application built and tested from scratch in a 5-day solo sprint. The assessment required acting simultaneously as developer, QA engineer, and delivery manager.
Delivered: a live Next.js app on Vercel, 35+ Playwright E2E tests, GitHub Actions CI/CD, and a complete PMI documentation library — charter, product backlog (40+ user stories), ADRs, OWASP security audit, and an AI engineering log tracking 24 Claude-assisted tasks.
Player API — Build & Test
Not just a test suite — a production-ready public REST API designed, built, and verified from scratch in a 3-day solo sprint. The assessment required both implementation and comprehensive test coverage.
Delivered: ASP.NET Core 8 API with JWT auth, 5 endpoints, Swagger UI, live on Railway — plus 28 NUnit tests across two layers: 12 unit tests (PlayerStore in isolation) and 16 integration tests (full pipeline via WebApplicationFactory, 100% endpoint coverage, positive and negative paths).
Engineering Tools Series
AI-powered tools for the day-to-day work of engineering teams and management — designed to enhance transparency, productivity, and AI fluency across the delivery organisation. Built on the premise that AI earns its place the same way any engineering instrument does: by what it actually delivers.
What Others Say
“I strongly recommend Evgenii for any Release Train Engineer or Agile leadership role. From day one, he impressed me with how methodical and structured his approach was, from preparing PI Planning to running ART Syncs and Inspect & Adapt workshops in a predictable, transparent way. He is genuinely result-focused: he keeps conversations anchored in business outcomes, helps teams remove impediments rather than just report them, and continuously nudges the train toward measurable improvements in delivery and quality.”
“Evgenii is an RTE with a very high level of professional expertise and strong leadership skills. He has a solid academic foundation and extensive practical experience in designing and optimizing processes for teams of various types and scales. He communicates the essence of changes clearly and in a structured way, helping teams smoothly adapt to new approaches. I highly recommend Evgenii as a strong RTE and a reliable partner in transformation and process improvement initiatives.”
“Evgenii designed and implemented a test automation framework architecture that was not just functional — it was thoughtfully built, scalable, and fully CI/CD-ready. Thanks to his approach, our team accelerated regression testing by 5 times while maintaining consistently high product quality. His proactive mindset and willingness to share knowledge allowed the team to avoid many issues. He was reliable, collaborative, an awesome team player and a true professional to work with.”
Hire Me
Open to senior leadership roles: Quality & Engineering Lead · SAFe RTE · Agile Delivery Lead · QA/Engineering Manager · Technical PM. Based in Spain, available remote / hybrid EU.
Available for consulting engagements: Agile transformation, QA strategy, process optimisation, team capability building. From advisory to embedded leadership.