Senior QA Engineer

Job Description

We are looking for a Senior QA Engineer / SDET to drive quality across our AI-native backend services and platform systems. You will own test automation strategy, release quality gates, and quality engineering practices — working closely with backend engineers (Java + Python), product managers, and platform architects. This role focuses heavily on validating hexagonal architecture adapters, Kafka event pipelines, multi-database correctness, and AI scoring model outputs.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and scale automated test frameworks for Java microservices built on hexagonal architecture — with distinct test strategies for the domain core, adapter layers (MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Cosmos DB, Kafka, Elasticsearch, Redis/Aerospike), and external integrations.

• Develop and maintain comprehensive test suites: functional, integration (Testcontainers), regression, contract, and end-to-end across all adapter implementations.

• Validate Kafka event pipelines: consumer behavior, event ordering, idempotency, poison pill handling, and dead-letter queue processing.

• Validate MongoDB document integrity, PostgreSQL relational consistency, Cosmos DB partition correctness, and Elasticsearch index accuracy across service boundaries.

• Design and execute golden dataset test scenarios — seeding realistic dealer and customer data to validate scoring accuracy, suppression correctness, and attribution logic.

• Validate Python-based AI/ML service outputs: scoring model results, recommendation correctness, and LLM response safety gates.

• Collaborate closely with backend engineers and architects to embed quality early in hexagonal domain design and adapter implementation.

• Drive testability improvements by influencing API design, logging, observability, and error handling.

• Own release quality and go/no-go decisions by defining and tracking quality gates in CI/CD pipelines.

• Define and monitor quality metrics: test coverage, defect leakage, flakiness, MTTR, and automation ROI.

• Lead root cause analysis for production issues and drive preventive measures.

• Mentor junior QA/SDET engineers and set best practices across teams.

Skills & Experience

• 6+ years of hands-on experience in QA Engineering, Test Automation, or SDET roles.

• Strong test automation expertise using modern Java-based frameworks; working knowledge of Python test frameworks (pytest) is a strong plus.

• Deep experience testing distributed microservices, REST APIs, and Kafka-based architectures.

• Experience with Testcontainers for integration testing across MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Kafka, and Elasticsearch locally.

• Strong understanding of Kafka testing: consumer behavior, event ordering guarantees, and idempotency validation.

• Experience with MongoDB and PostgreSQL testing patterns: data integrity, schema migration validation, multi-tenant isolation verification.

• Familiarity with Elasticsearch test strategies: index correctness, relevance, and query result validation.

• Experience with CI/CD pipeline integration (GitHub Actions, Jenkins, or equivalent).

• Familiarity with containerized environments (Docker, Kubernetes).

• Excellent problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills.

Preferred Skills

• Experience validating AI/ML model outputs and scoring pipeline correctness.

• Exposure to contract testing (Pact or similar) and service virtualization for hexagonal adapter boundaries.

• Experience with performance, load, and chaos testing (JMeter, Gatling, k6) against Elasticsearch and Kafka.

• Background in DevOps or Site Reliability Engineering practices.

Perks & Benefits

• Competitive compensation and generous stock options.

• Medical insurance coverage.

• Work with some of the brightest minds from Silicon Valley's most dominant and successful companies.