Arif Ullah Khan
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Quality Engineer and Developer
Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Toptal member since October 31, 2024
Arif is an experienced senior software quality engineer and technical project manager with nearly a decade of experience driving excellence in the tech industry. Recognized for his proficiency in automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and programming across diverse languages, Arif applies a strong quality-first approach and Agile delivery expertise to align technical excellence with strategic goals, driving consistent project success.
Portfolio
Experience
- Automation - 7 years
- Test Automation - 7 years
- CI/CD Pipelines - 7 years
- GitHub Actions - 6 years
- Cypress - 5 years
- JavaScript - 5 years
- Agile Project Management - 3 years
- Claude Code - 1 year
Work Experience
Program Manager
Al Jazeera International
- Established RACI frameworks, automation, and new workflows, freeing around 10% of team capacity and reducing engineers’ meeting time by around 50%.
- Analyzed sprint and epic progress data, found the dysfunctions, and provided leadership and solutions to improve team flow and velocity by 30%.
- Helped the team focus on sprint goals that better prioritized real customer needs.
- Improved the incident response and resolution SLA by 20% through improved ownership.
- Enhanced quality and change control processes, cutting post-release incidents by around 30% and improving resolution speed by around 25%.
- Managed AI-based projects with vendors like Google and helped the team achieve desired outcomes.
- Managed and facilitated Agile ceremonies and improved Agile delivery maturity by standardizing backlog refinement and feature sizing, reducing oversized deliverables by around 25% and increasing sprint predictability by around 30%.
- Acted as a proxy customer success manager by building and executing a stakeholder engagement model with internal end users, resulting in 100% adoption and a 4-star satisfaction rating for delivered solutions.
- Improved the health of the team by arranging social connections and providing psychological safety.
Quality Assurance Automation Lead
Code & Co.
- Built an automated test suite for Ruby on Rails using model and fixture-based system tests.
- Added model tests to enhance test coverage across all layers.
- Set up GitHub Actions to run tests automatically on pull requests.
Senior QA Automation Engineer
Toptal, LLC
- Developed automated tests on all layers, including unit, integration, functional, and end-to-end tests.
- Improved the quality of code, products, and processes.
- Helped achieve zero post-deployment bugs for most features developed through a quality mindset and actionable items.
- Improved CI/CD pipelines' success rate from 60% to 90%.
- Improved integration tests' flakiness from failing multiple times on production to almost zero false positives.
- Executed performance load and stress tests to identify the maximum concurrent users the system can handle.
Visiting Lecturer
National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences
- Taught Software Quality Engineering theory and practice to 5th-semester students.
- Received an excellent response from the students at the end, and some reached out later to say that I had made a huge impact not only on the SQE subject matter but also on their lives.
- Was offered another course for next semester based on students' feedback and my performance, but unfortunately, my engagements prevented me from pursuing this role.
- Taught at NUCES, one of the best tech institutes in Pakistan, and I felt pride in being a teacher there.
Software Quality Engineer
Al Jazeera
- Contributed to the data migration from the old tech stack to the latest by finding correctness and completeness issues in the ETL process through automated scripting.
- Helped the team build a quality mindset, adding and tracking bugs and improvisations.
- Improved the mobile app experience by increasing the count of crash-free users from 91% to 99%.
- Designed and scaled efficient and reliable test automation frameworks across squads from scratch.
Software Quality Assurance Engineer | Team Lead
inov8 Limited
- Led a QA team of 3-5 members, enhancing client support by improving software quality.
- Oversaw the complete QA lifecycle, including functional and non-functional testing for financial apps and payment gateways.
- Developed test automation scripts using Java with TestNG and conducted performance testing with JMeter.
- Created and reviewed test plans, test cases, and test effort estimates to ensure thorough coverage.
- Managed defect classification, reporting, and cross-functional team integration to streamline project delivery.
- Ensured timely delivery through effective test planning, execution, and communication.
Software Quality Assurance Engineer
Abacus Consulting
- Gathered business requirements and created business requirements documents and functional specification documents, ensuring alignment with project goals.
- Designed UML diagrams to streamline system understanding and development processes.
- Scripted test cases and performed functional and non-functional testing for SAP-based financial systems.
- Introduced test automation scripting using UFT and Visual Basic, improving testing efficiency and accuracy.
Project History
AKRetro - RetroSpective Tool for Teams
https://akretro.com/From a technical perspective, AKRetro is built with Next.js 16, React 19, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS 4 for the front-end experience, with Supabase powering authentication, Postgres data storage, row-level security, and real-time collaboration. The app supports live board updates, shared voting, comments, role-based access, action-item ownership, and notifications, making it suitable for both small teams and more structured organizations.
The business problem it solves is simple but common: most retrospectives generate useful input, but that input often gets lost, fragmented, or never converted into action. AKRetro helps teams centralize retrospective collaboration and create a reliable path from team feedback to concrete improvement work.
PakhtoEd - Educational Content Platform in Pashto Language
https://pakhtoed.com/KorBooking | Rooms and Homes Booking Web App
Crypto Website | Performance Testing
Freelance Project
http://www.pilot.ioI delivered proof of concepts to evaluate tools within budget and project requirements. I also selected the optimal tool that aligned with the client’s needs and constraints.
Education
Master's Degree in Software Project Management
FAST National University - Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
Government College University - Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Certifications
Claude 101
Anthropic
Generative AI Overview for Project Managers
Project Management Institute (PMI)
Ruby Programming For Everyone
Udemy
Scrum Fundamentals Certified (SFC)
SCRUMstudy - Accreditation Body for Scrum and Agile
Skills
Libraries/APIs
REST APIs, React, Node.js, Playwright, Watir WebDriver
Tools
GitHub, Slack, Apache JMeter, Git, Jira, Cucumber, Grafana, Postman, Bitbucket, Karate API Testing, BrowserStack, Xcode, Jenkins, Claude Code, Sentry, ChatGPT, WebdriverIO, LoadRunner, SoapUI, Redmine, Confluence, Katalon Studio, Claude, AI Prompts
Languages
XML, SQL, JavaScript, Java, TypeScript, HTML, GraphQL, Ruby, CSS, Python
Frameworks
Selenium, Cypress, CodeceptJS, TestNG, Jest, Appium, Ruby on Rails 7, React Native
Paradigms
Functional Testing, Agile, Load Testing, Automated Testing, Test Automation, E2E Testing, Manual Testing, User Acceptance Testing (UAT), User Testing, Automation, Software Testing, Testing, Behavior-driven Development (BDD), Agile Project Management, Unit Testing, Non-functional Testing, Stress Testing, Scrum, Objectives & Key Results (OKRs)
Platforms
Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Android, Mobile, Web, WordPress, iOS, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Windows, Ubuntu, Blockchain, Testsigma, SharePoint, Docker, Vercel, YouTube
Industry Expertise
Project Management
Storage
Data Validation, JSON, Oracle SQL Developer, Databases
Other
GitHub Actions, SQA, Leadership, Agile Software Testing, CI/CD Pipelines, Test Management, Quality Control (QC), Performance Testing, Quality Assurance (QA), QA Automation, API Testing, End-to-end Implementation (E2E), Documentation, Test Cases, Content Management Systems (CMS), Regression Testing, Front-end, QA Testing, UI Testing, Web App Testing, Manual QA, Integration Testing, Mobile App Testing, Cross-browser Testing, APIs, Bug Fixes, Manual Software Testing, Web Applications, Performance Optimization, QA Leadership, Test Planning, Test Documentation, Software QA, Technical Writing, Code Review, Source Code Review, Task Analysis, Technical Hiring, Interviewing, Automated UI Testing, Team Management, Test Case Creation, Smoke Testing, SDET, Test Automation Frameworks, Quality Auditing, iPhone, Agile QA, Enterprise Project Management, Automation, Beta Testing, Exploratory Testing, QA Process, AI Integration, Automation Testing, Bug Discovery & Tracking, Mobile Apps, Test Case Execution, Device Testing, Communication, Attention to Detail, Screeners, Written Communication, IT Project Management, Monitoring, SOAP, GitHub Copilot Chat, Low Code, Cross-functional Team Leadership, Accessibility Testing, Web Accessibility, A11Y, eCommerce, RESTFul APIs, Data Migration Testing, Software Development, Large Language Models (LLMs), Full-stack, AI-generated Code, AI Testing, Program Management, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Data Integrity Testing, ETL Testing, Software Engineering, Test Scenarios, System Integration Testing (SIT), Model-based Testing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), GUI Testing, Research, SAP, Team Foundation Server 2013, HP UFT, Business Requirements, Defect Management, Maven XML, Team Leadership, Booking, Microsoft 365, Strategic Planning, Resource Management, Human Resources (HR), Business Cases, Digital Marketing, Programming, Algorithms, Logical Database Design, Web Development, Computer Literacy, Analysis, Operating Systems, Reporting, Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), Product Development, Metrics, University Teaching, Mentorship, Coaching, Career Coaching, Media, Global Project Management, Risk Management, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Agile Program Management, Engineering Management, Jira Administration, Productivity Improvement, Stakeholder Management, Vendor Management, Product Roadmaps, Product Planning, Digital Asset Management, Asset Management, Broadcasting, User Onboarding, Data Migration, Cursor AI, Agentic AI, Knowledge Management, Vibe Coding, Prompt Engineering, Product Management, Startups, Video Editing, Content Creation, Social Media Posting, Instagram, Meta Ads, Project Planning & Execution, JIRA Rovo
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