Kevin Lalka

Software Engineering Technical Leader

Massapequa, NY

Executive Summary

Technical Leader with over 25 years of experience bridging Quality Assurance and Core Software Development. Proven track record of driving large-scale architectural migrations and critical enterprise integrations—including **Zappos** inventory pipelines into Amazon WMS, **GrubHub's** core stack unification with Seamless, and embedding **Kenna Security** deep into Cisco's Cybersecurity infrastructure. Expert in scaling automated testing ROI, building reliable CI/CD pipelines, and establishing high-traceability quality reporting ecosystems.

Professional Milestones

Software Engineering Technical Leader

Cisco, Inc.

  • Redesigned CI build pipeline for over $100,000 per year in savings using CircleCI
  • Designed and implemented test reporting strategy including Cloud based ETL pipelines
  • Project Lead for integration of existing Kenna Security services into the Cisco ecosystem ahead of schedule
  • Test Lead for both Connectors and Inference teams during integration of Inference service for Cisco Secure Endpoint (CSE)
  • Integrated build and deploy pipeline with Slack, Jira, and GCP BigQuery / Looker
  • Designed and implemented Performance testing using Gatling (Java / Kotlin) including deploy pipeline
  • Scaled and led a Test Engineering team of 8 Full Time Engineers and 9 Remote Contractors, building 3,000+ automated tests from scratch using TestCafe (TypeScript)
  • Built PoC testing frameworks using Cypress and Playwright

Senior QA Software Architect

Kenna Security

  • Created and maintained Unit/Integration test frameworks for the Ruby monorepo using RSpec and Capybara
  • Established best practices for testing Docker infrastructure within the DevOps team
  • Wrote technical documentation and conducted training sessions with developers for all new test tools
  • Migrated Manual tests from Google Sheets to Jira with XRay
  • Expanded existing test coverage from 45 test cases to 500+, adding rich metadata for filtering and reporting

Senior QA Automation Engineer

Work & Co.

  • Designed Cloud solution for storing test reports across multiple projects with a UI built using React and AWS Amplify
  • Created End-to-End automated testing solutions using WebDriverIO
  • Test Lead and Engineering contributor for the Equinox mobile application built in React Native
  • Test Lead for the Red Robin website redesign using Next.js
  • Test Lead for the Facebook Blueprint project
  • Created visual regression test automation solution; executed proof of concept for AI-driven testing tool Applitools Eyes
  • Mentored a team of 5 Manual Testers who successfully transitioned to Automation Engineer roles

Senior QA Automation Engineer

GrubHub Inc.

  • Developed front-end automated testing using Protractor and AngularJS
  • Designed and created an Ad monitoring solution for the Analytics team using BrowserMob
  • Integrated automation test tools with cloud testing platforms SauceLabs and BrowserStack
  • Led browser testing for the complete site redesign during the corporate rebranding effort
  • Co-founded an outreach program for teaching software testing in local high schools

QA Automation Engineer

Vibrant Media

  • Served as sole testing resource for the Javascript engineering team based in London, UK
  • Automated in-browser script verification tests in Java with Selenium
  • Created comprehensive test plans and manually tested custom video players on iOS and Android platforms
  • Verified Large Language Model (LLM) contextual keyword mapping engines

QA Analyst II

Zappos, Inc.

  • Test Lead for transferring inventory in the Zappos Warehouse Management System (WMS) into the Amazon WMS, completing on-site testing in Shepherdsville, KY
  • Developed data migration verification scripts for inventory cutover
  • Automated full-stack testing of Front End and API surfaces using Java and Spring
  • Created advanced MySQL and Oracle queries for data verification validation
  • Trained 8 Manual QA resources for test automation engineering tracks

Prior employment metrics available upon request or via LinkedIn.

⚙️ Technical Index

A comprehensive mapping of runtime languages, architectural tooling, and cloud environments utilized across current projects.

Core Languages

TypeScriptJavaScriptRubyReact / React NativeJava / KotlinSvelteGoPythonShellTerraform

Frameworks & Automation Tools

CypressPlaywrightTestCafeWebDriverIOGatlingSeleniumNext.jsDockerRSpecCircleCIJenkins

Cloud & Infrastructure

AWS (EC2, S3, DynamoDB, Lambda, Amplify)GCP (BigQuery, Looker, Cloud Storage, Pub/Sub)PostgreSQLMySQLOracle

Education & Credentials

  • Computer Engineering / CS Study
    Polytechnic University • 2001-2002
  • 🏆 Knight Center Data Visualization for Storytelling
  • 🛡️ ISTQB Certified Tester (Foundation Level)
  • 💻 CompTIA A+ Core/OS Certified