Mark Custard
I'm a QA & Automation Lead
About
QA engineer with 7+ years across fintech, insurance and entertainment — including Netflix acquisition platforms and enterprise Salesforce integrations — now sole engineer of a live production booking platform built test-first behind a 20,100-test suite running in CI on every push.
QA & Automation Engineering Lead
Test-first, CI-gated, production-owned. I hold a Bachelor of Laws in Business Law from London Metropolitan University and a Web Development certification from Actualize Coding Bootcamp. I thrive in fast-paced, cross-functional teams—partnering with developers, designers, and stakeholders to deliver high-quality software at scale.
- Degree: Bachelor of Laws (LLB)
- GitHub: github.com/markxcustard
- Phone: (360) 771-0564
- City: Ridgefield, Washington
- Experience: 7+ Years
- Specialization: QA, Automation & Full-Stack
- Email: mark.a.custard@gmail.com
- Freelance: Available
I build and maintain a 20,100+ test suite — 14,400 pytest, 4,500 Vitest and 1,200 Playwright E2E — written test-first, with mocked unit and integration layers that never touch production, E2E validation in staging, and CI gating every push and every staging→production promotion. Before that I built a Playwright framework from zero to 700+ tests on a Netflix customer acquisition platform, cutting manual regression effort by 90%, and validated Salesforce and Cosmos DB integrations across insurance quoting systems. My toolkit spans Playwright, pytest, Vitest, Selenium, Postman with ChaiJS, GitHub Actions and Azure DevOps, plus Python, TypeScript, React/Vite, FastAPI and PostgreSQL. I build the systems as well as the tests, so my testing is informed by how software actually breaks.
Resume
7+ years in Quality Assurance across fintech, insurance, ecommerce and entertainment — from Netflix acquisition platforms and enterprise Salesforce integrations to sole engineering ownership of a live production booking platform. Test-first, CI-gated, production-owned.
Summary
Mark Custard
SDET and full-stack engineer with 7+ years in quality engineering across fintech, insurance and entertainment. Builds and runs a live booking platform end to end at TAG Parking (React, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Stripe), backed by a 20,100+ test suite written test-first, with CI gating every push and every production promotion. I build the systems as well as the tests, so my testing is informed by how software actually breaks.
- Ridgefield, Washington, 98642 · Remote
- (360) 771-0564
- mark.a.custard@gmail.com
Education
Web Development Certification
October 2017 - May 2018
Actualize Coding Bootcamp
Comprehensive full-stack web development training including Ruby, JavaScript, React, and modern development practices.
Bachelor of Laws (LLB) in Business Law
September 2002 - September 2006
London Metropolitan University
Grade: Very High 2:1
Degree in Business Law providing a strong foundation in analytical thinking, process analysis, and attention to detail.
Professional Experience
Full Stack Developer
September 2025 - Present
TAG Parking, Remote
- Build and maintain a 20,100+ test suite (14,400 pytest, 4,500 Vitest, 1,200 Playwright E2E) written test-first, with CI gating every push and every staging→production promotion — including “census” tests that enumerate every code path of a kind and prove each check by injecting a fault
- Architect and deliver a complete booking platform (React, FastAPI, PostgreSQL) with complex data synchronisation, processing $256k in gross bookings — $223k net revenue across 2,100+ bookings — through automated financial workflows
- Integrate a robust Stripe payment architecture with dynamic pricing and race-condition-free processing; contained a payment-SDK regression the same day — an estimated $4.8k in bookings at risk — with a dependency pin and a CI smoke guard
- Lead full-stack development and business process automation with a comprehensive auto-roster scheduling engine, including the fix for a defect that silently undid staff edits whenever a new booking arrived — proven by 28 injected faults and two independent adversarial reviews
- Engineered an automated roster and scheduling engine: template-driven shift generation, capacity-aware assignment, driver-qualification rules, overlap detection and a live operational view of each driver's run
- Integrated live flight-board scraping (30-minute cadence, 3,700+ flights tracked) with automated delay detection that recalculates customer pickup times, SMS-alerts staff and reorders drivers' jobs into true operational sequence
- Engineer a pricing and promotions engine — tiered and peak-day rates and a competitor-aware discount matrix — applying $26.2k in discounts across 1,000 redemptions
- Build LLM features on the Anthropic API: automated business reporting, a production log sentinel, and a read-only admin analyst that answers business questions with model-written SQL under a least-privilege Postgres role
- Ship a pre-registered checkout A/B experiment across iOS and Android, with sticky per-visitor assignment and a signed, timestamped analysis plan
QA Analyst — Manual | Automation
June 2024 - June 2026
BlueinGreen (Netflix contractor), Remote
- Built a Playwright automation framework from zero for the customer acquisition platform, scaling it to 700+ tests and cutting manual regression effort by 90%
- Validated performance and correctness of the primary acquisition pages supporting systems that contribute to $1.2B in subscription revenue
- Led migration testing between vendor platforms and logged the critical defects that kept the cutovers seamless
- Executed functional, regression and exploratory testing across web, iOS, Android and TV platforms
Senior QA Engineer
June 2025 - December 2025
Embrace Pet Insurance, Remote
- Validated Salesforce CRM functionality and data models through the integration of quote-creation tools across multiple brands
- Ran integration testing across Salesforce and Cosmos DB, verifying data synchronisation between insurance systems
- Managed 400+ test cases in Testmo and automated production releases via Azure DevOps CI/CD
- Executed manual and A/B testing across customer-facing quoting journeys
Professional Experience
QA Analyst
March 2022 - May 2024
Stake (Fintech), Remote
- API testing with Postman and ChaiJS to validate financial transaction integrity and cross-system data synchronisation
- Automated data-accuracy checks in SQL and Python; integration testing with mocked data for mobile business-process automation
- Cut app crash rates 20% and improved data accuracy 15% via BigQuery-based monitoring
- Led test planning and execution across functional, integration and regression cycles on Android and iOS
QA Engineer
July 2021 - May 2022
CSC Generation, Merrillville, IN
- Automated validation for new feature integrations
- Built the regression test cases behind improved defect throughput
- Performed cross-browser and mobile testing across desktop and mobile platforms
Software QA Analyst
April 2021 - July 2021
Kemper Insurance, Downers Grove, IL
- Functional, integration and regression testing across insurance applications with rigorous defect reporting
- Developed and continuously updated test plans ensuring comprehensive coverage
Software QA Analyst
January 2020 - April 2021
American Access Casualty Company, Downers Grove, IL
- Authored integration test scripts and automated business-requirement validation, improving validation efficiency 25%
- Conducted compatibility tests across various browsers and versions
- Led initiatives to enhance unit testing coverage and automation
Junior Application Developer
October 2018 - January 2020
American Access Casualty Company, Downers Grove, IL
- Built and validated web applications across the production lifecycle
- Analysed and corrected data-model and reliability defects, providing timely updates
- Worked directly with customers to develop new features
Projects
AI-Directed DJ Mixing System
2026
Personal project — product owner and creative director, built with Claude Code as AI engineering partner
- Designed and directed a live-performance DJ application that beat-matches a personal library of 50+ tracks across three decks; timing is sample-accurate, with the two decks’ kicks landing about 1 ms apart in end-to-end audio tests
- Integrated Claude as a real-time music director that chooses the next track, shapes each transition and layers samples using measured key, energy and harmonic fit, with an assist mode that lets the DJ pick while the AI handles the blend
- Drove quality from the DJ booth: tested in live sets, reported problems by ear — off-beat blends, harmonic clashes, controls that did not match the sound — and turned each into a measured fix; an audio audit found and corrected beat grids running half a beat out in 8 of 53 tracks
- Shaped the experience around how a DJ actually works: next-track suggestions that follow the chosen track, a played-track history and set playlist, a sample bank with loops, a record of loved and rejected transitions, and live updates to the AI logic mid-set without stopping the music
- Ran development as Ralph-loop, test-driven iteration: every requirement became failing tests first, shown to fail against the old code, with independent adversarial reviews required to prove each bug they reported and every proof kept as a permanent regression test
- Result: around 600 automated tests, plus thousands of randomised stress-test sessions against both a simulated and the real audio engine
Portfolio
Personal projects across test automation, BDD, data processing and database work — each one built test-first, with CI running the suite on every push.
- All
- Automation
- BDD
- Unit
- Data
- Database
Personal Website Automation
179 tests179 Selenium tests across every section, with page objects, cross-browser CI and a nightly production run.
BDD Personal Website
95 scenarios95 Gherkin scenarios and 318 steps in Behave, with driver lifecycle handled in environment hooks.
Cypress Portfolio Tests
179 tests179 Cypress tests across 10 specs in about 40 seconds, with expected content kept in one fixture.
Flight Delay Notifier
91 tests91 tests at 100% coverage across unit, integration and contract layers, with every test double hand-written.
Pandas Filtering Films
54 testsSeven composable filters, each a pure function that never mutates its input, behind 54 tests.
Films CRUD
60 testsSQLAlchemy CRUD over SQLite behind an argparse CLI, with 60 tests on in-memory databases.
Technical Skills
Comprehensive technical expertise across testing tools, programming languages, and QA methodologies
Programming Languages
Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, SQL, Ruby, ChaiJS
Testing Tools
Playwright, pytest, pytest-asyncio, Vitest, unittest.mock, Selenium, Postman, BrowserStack, Testmo, TestRail, Rainforest QA, BigQuery, Xray for Jira, Zephyr for Jira
Types of Testing
Unit, Integration, Functional, Regression, Exploratory, Smoke, Automation, Sanity, Spot Checking, A/B Testing, Cross-Platform, Cross-Browser, Mobile Web, API Testing, Webhook Verification
Test Practices & Methodologies
TDD, Test-Pyramid & Coverage Design, Risk-Based Prioritisation, Mock Boundaries, Flake Triage, Regression-Suite Ownership, Release Sign-Off, Root Cause Analysis, BDD, Page Object Model (POM), ETL Validation
Frameworks & Libraries
React, React Router, Vite, VueJS, FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, Pandas, Gherkin, Cucumber, Behave
Project Management & Agile
Jira, Azure DevOps, Scrum, Agile, Sprint Planning, Sprint Retrospectives, Confluence, ClickUp, Notion, Test Documentation
Version Control & CI/CD
Git, GitHub, Bitbucket, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, CI/CD Pipelines, Staging→Production Promotion Gates, Deployment Pipelines
Cloud & Databases
Railway, AWS, Heroku, Netlify, PostgreSQL, Salesforce, Cosmos DB, BigQuery, Zapier, Environment & Secret Management
Developer Tools & Integrations
Chrome DevTools, Browser Debugging Tools, Stripe, SendGrid, Anthropic API, Alembic (migrations), Log-Based Monitoring & Alerting, Incident Triage, Defect Management
Platform Testing
Web, iOS, Android, TV Platforms, Desktop, Cross-Browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge), Mobile Testing
Skills
Core expertise in test automation, test strategy and CI-gated delivery — backed by hands-on full-stack engineering
Testimonials
What colleagues and clients say about working with me
Contact
Get in touch to discuss QA projects, testing opportunities, or collaboration
Address
Ridgefield, Washington, 98642
Call Me
🇺🇸 +1 (360) 771-0564
🇬🇧 +44 7441 343276
Email Me
mark.a.custard@gmail.com