Meta's QA Engineering org for Facebook Reels, Instagram Reels, and Ads Integrity is struggling with duplicated manual test triage, flaky test reruns, and inconsistent bug-routing across three product teams. You are the QA Engineer leading an automation and process-improvement program to reduce release friction before the next quarterly launch cycle. The effort spans 18 engineers and QA partners across Menlo Park, New York, and London, and leadership wants measurable impact within 12 weeks.
The Engineering Manager for Reels wants faster release velocity and fewer manual gates. The Ads Integrity PM wants stricter validation because false negatives can create policy and revenue risk. The Infra team that owns Sandcastle and CI capacity is supportive but has already committed most of its quarter to another reliability initiative. Your role requires aligning these teams on one workflow without direct authority.
You have a budget of $120,000 for contractor support and tooling changes, but no new full-time headcount. The program must be designed and piloted in 12 weeks, with production rollout starting by Week 10. Current baseline metrics are: 14% flaky test rate, 9 hours average bug triage SLA, and 22% of release-blocking bugs misrouted on first assignment. Sandcastle capacity can only support a 20% increase in automated test volume without additional approval.