Aleksandr Kotlyar

QA Automation Lead / Senior Software Engineer in Test

I design and build test infrastructure, CI/CD quality gates, reporting systems, and automation practices that help engineering teams ship faster with measurable quality.

My focus is on making quality visible, measurable, and actionable through reliable feedback loops, maintainable automation, and pragmatic engineering standards.

• test automation architecture
• CI/CD quality gates
• Allure reporting and test observability
• Dockerized test execution
• Selenium / Pytest automation templates
• flaky test diagnostics
• test data and environment strategy
• mentoring and QA engineering standards

What I do

I help engineering teams turn testing into an integrated engineering system inside CI/CD.

This usually includes:

• designing maintainable automation frameworks
• integrating tests into delivery pipelines
• improving visibility of test results and trends
• reducing flaky and low-signal checks
• building reusable templates and tooling
• mentoring QA engineers and automation specialists

Featured projects

gitlab-allure-history

A GitLab CI/CD reporting solution for preserving Allure history across pipeline runs and publishing trend reports on GitLab Pages.

Useful for teams that need:

• historical visibility of test results
• report publishing without external infrastructure
• GitLab-native artifact and Pages flow
• reusable reporting infrastructure for QA pipelines

Repository: https://gitlab.com/aleksandr-kotlyar/gitlab-allure-history

python-gitlabci-selenium

A Python project template for multi-browser Selenium test execution in GitLab CI and locally using Docker.

The project demonstrates:

• Dockerized browser test execution
• Selenium test automation structure
• GitLab CI integration
• reusable automation project template
• local and CI execution consistency

Repository: https://gitlab.com/aleksandr-kotlyar/python-gitlabci-selenium

python-test-automation-cookbook

A Python QA automation cookbook with reusable recipes for API testing, pytest patterns, CI/CD pipelines, Dockerized execution, Allure reporting, quality gates, and security scanning.

Includes recipes for:

• API contract testing with pytest and JSON Schema
• pytest fixtures, parametrization, helpers, and reusable assertions
• GitLab CI and GitHub Actions test pipelines
• Dockerized test execution and image build/test/publish workflows
• Allure reports, logging, attachments, and history publishing
• linting, code quality checks, and CI quality gates
• security and container scanning with Trivy, Bandit, Hadolint, and Dockle
• optional Slack notifications, Selenium/browser examples, and Azure Pipelines

Repository: https://gitlab.com/aleksandr-kotlyar/python-test-automation-cookbook

Open-source contributions

I contribute to Python testing and browser automation tooling, mostly around Selenium-based UI testing, CI reliability, release tooling, and project maintenance.

My contribution areas include:

• browser automation infrastructure;
• Selenium ecosystem compatibility;
• CI stability for browser-related tests;
• issue triage and regression investigation;
• release, packaging, and documentation improvements;
• user support for Python UI testing tools.

I prefer practical open-source work that improves reliability, maintainability, and developer experience for test automation projects.

Mentoring

I provide mentoring and consulting in test automation, QA engineering, CI/CD quality gates, Selenium/Pytest, and automation architecture.

Topics I usually help with:

• building maintainable test automation frameworks;
• stabilizing flaky UI tests;
• setting up CI/CD test reporting;
• improving Allure reports and test history;
• designing practical QA automation roadmaps;
• preparing for SDET / QA automation interviews.

Engineering principles

Good QA engineering is not about adding more tests everywhere.

It is about building a system where:

• critical risks are covered early
• feedback is fast and reliable
• test results are observable and explainable
• flaky tests are treated as technical debt
• quality gates are explicit, measurable, and owned
• automation improves delivery instead of slowing it down

Areas of expertise

• QA strategy and test automation leadership
• CI/CD quality gates
• Test automation architecture
• Python / Pytest / Selenium
• GitLab CI
• Docker-based test execution
• Allure reporting
• Test observability
• Mentoring and engineering standards

Professional background

QA automation lead, mentor, and Senior Software Engineer in Test.

My background combines hands-on automation engineering with QA leadership: building test infrastructure, defining CI/CD quality gates, improving reporting and observability, mentoring engineers, and turning testing practices into scalable engineering standards.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksandr-kotlyar/