Portrait of Marcelo Costa

Marcelo Costa

Senior QA Engineer & SDET — scalable E2E frameworks (Cypress/Playwright), CI/CD, test architecture

Madrid, Spain 🇪🇸 • Trilingual: English • Portuguese • Spanish

⚡ Quick Impact Metrics

5,000+E2E tests maintained daily (Board)
98%Startup time cut (60s → instant) via webpack (Board)
25 → 8 minSuite execution reduction (Facephi)
30%Customer issues reduced via negative testing (Nespresso)

🎯 What I Do

  • E2E Test Automation: Cypress, Playwright, TypeScript/JavaScript
  • Performance Tuning: Webpack optimization, race-condition fixes
  • CI/CD Pipelines: Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD
  • Mobile Testing: Appium, XCTest, Selenium, WebdriverIO
  • BDD Frameworks: Cucumber/Gherkin for readable tests
  • API Testing: Postman, GraphQL, REST validation
  • Team Leadership: Mentoring, sprint presentations, KPIs
  • Release Management: Dev → Staging → Production

🎯 2025 Achievements at Board International

  • ⚡ Performance: 98% reduction in test startup via webpack refactor (60s → instant)
  • 🔧 DX: Step Decorators → debugging hours → seconds across suites
  • 📊 Scale: Maintaining & optimizing 5,000+ E2E tests in Azure DevOps
  • 🚀 CI/CD: Ongoing pipeline parallelization & modernization

Now: Senior QA Engineer focusing on flake reduction and pipeline acceleration

💻 Tech Stack

Languages

TypeScript JavaScript

Shell & Environment

Bash/Zsh WSL Node.js

E2E/Unit Testing Frameworks

Cypress Playwright Jest Cucumber/Gherkin

CI/CD & DevOps

Azure DevOps GitHub Actions Docker ArgoCD

API & Testing Tools

GraphQL Postman/Bruno API Stubbing Mock Testing

Mobile & Database

Appium Selenium WebDriverIO SQL/Postgres

Reporting & Version Control

Allure Reports Mochawesome Git Nightly Builds

Recent Experience

Last 4 roles — SDET & QA Manager

Recent Experience

Board International

Senior QA Engineer
May 2025 – Present | Madrid, Spain

• 5,000+ E2E tests in Azure DevOps (Cypress + TypeScript)
• 98% startup reduction (60s → instant) via webpack
• Step Decorators: debugging hours → seconds
• CI/CD pipeline optimization & infra improvements
Facephi Biometrics

Senior QA Engineer
Feb 2024 – Apr 2025 | Madrid, Spain

• Greenfield E2E (Cypress/Playwright, TypeScript)
• Suite time 25 min → 8 min (same tests)
• ID+Selfie flow: 1h manual → 1 min automated
Nespresso IoT (Nestlé)

QA Manager
Feb 2023 – Feb 2024 | Madrid, Spain

• Managed 8 testers (manual + automation)
• Bug guidelines, KPIs, expanded documentation
• Negative tests → customer issues down 30%
Apple (Siri)

Automation Tester & Team Lead
Oct 2020 – Feb 2023 | Madrid, Spain

• UST framework (Swift/Xcode) for Siri testing
• Trained team of 3, managed tasks & reviews
• NLP/ASR/Flow/Dialog testing across ecosystem

Articles & Writing

Technical publications and best practices

Articles & Writing

GraphQL + Cypress
How to integrate Hasura GraphQL hooks into your E2E tests

Use Hasura + custom Cypress commands to keep tests isolated and deterministic. Code examples + best practices.

GraphQL Hasura Cypress
Read on Medium
Auth0 + Cypress
Speeding up Cypress tests with Auth0 login optimization

Token caching and session strategies to accelerate authenticated E2E tests.

Auth0 Cypress Performance
View on LinkedIn
AI + Cypress
How Cypress Will Revolutionize AI in Testing with cy.prompt()

Discover how cy.prompt() integrates AI-powered test generation directly into Cypress, transforming the future of test automation.

AI Testing Cypress Cyprompt
Read on Dev.to
cy.prompt() Tips
How to get most out of cy.prompt()

6 tips and tricks to maximize your AI-powered testing with cy.prompt() in Cypress. Learn best practices for leveraging this new AI tool.

AI Tips cy.prompt() Best Practices
Read on Dev.to
Excel Validation
How to validate tables, rows or any content of an Excel file using Cypress

Master Excel file validation in E2E tests. Learn to parse, validate, and assert tables, rows, and any content directly in your Cypress tests with practical examples.

File Handling XLSX Cypress
Read on Dev.to
More Articles Coming Soon

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© 2025 Marcelo Costa | Senior QA Engineer & Test Automation Specialist