Lead Quality Engineer

Description

What you’ll do (core responsibilities)

Automation engineering (frameworks + scalable suites)

• Design, build, and maintain automated test frameworks and suites for APIs and services; expand coverage while keeping tests deterministic and fast.
• Create reusable automation patterns (data builders, helpers, stubs/mocks where appropriate) to reduce duplication and improve maintainability.
• Own regression automation health: flake reduction, runtime optimization (parallelization where appropriate), and clear failure triage signals.

Quality strategy and quality gates

• Define and implement a layered test strategy (unit, component/service, integration, end-to-end) aligned to change risk and payment criticality.
• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD and define/enforce quality gates for merge and promotion readiness (evidence-based Definition of Done).
• Drive defect prevention: analyze defect leakage trends, run retrospectives on escapes, and implement systemic fixes (test gaps, unclear requirements, missing validations).

Collaboration and delivery partnership

• Partner with engineers, architects, and BSAs/POs early to clarify acceptance criteria, edge cases, and testability; translate behavior into executable checks where appropriate.
• Provide quality feedback during design and PR review cycles; promote testability, observability, and safe change patterns.
• Support release readiness by validating test evidence and coordinating with change/release processes as needed.

Non-functional testing (as applicable)

• Contribute to performance and resiliency validation approaches where appropriate (test data, scenarios, and automation hooks).
• Ensure monitoring and diagnostic artifacts exist for failures (logs/metrics/traces) and that test failures are actionable.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or equivalent experience
• 5+ years of experience in quality engineering with strong automation expertise
• Strong programming skills in Python for test automation and API testing
• Experience testing event-driven systems, data pipelines, or distributed architectures
• Hands-on Azure experience (e.g., Service Bus, Blob Storage, Azure SQL, AI Search, Azure OpenAI, DevOps)
• Experience with REST API testing, OpenAPI contracts, and integration validation
• Understanding of data quality, metadata validation, and complex system testing
• Experience testing security and compliance controls (RBAC, audit logs, data protection)

Additional Skills & Qualifications

• Exposure to AI/LLM testing or prompt validation is a strong plus
• Experience in regulated environments (financial services preferred)
• Automation, Selenium, Agile, Automated testing

Job Type & Location

This is a Contract position based out of Pittsburgh, PA.

Pay

The pay range for this position is $40.00 - $55.00/hr.

Benefits

• Medical, dental & vision
• Critical Illness, Accident, and Hospital
• 401(k) Retirement Plan – Pre-tax and Roth post-tax contributions available
• Life Insurance (Voluntary Life & AD&D for the employee and dependents)
• Short and long-term disability
• Health Spending Account (HSA)
• Transportation benefits
• Employee Assistance Program
• Time Off/Leave (PTO, Vacation or Sick Leave)

Workplace Type

This is a fully onsite position in Pittsburgh, PA.