Sr. Engineer, QA

We are seeking a highly experienced QA Sr. Engineer to lead quality efforts for Java-based REST microservices and event-driven systems. This role goes beyond test execution and includes ownership of test strategy, release quality governance, production issue support, and strengthening collaboration between onshore and offshore QA teams. 
The ideal candidate will serve as a QA leader within the engineering organization, ensuring strong QA presence in release planning, improving testing processes, and driving higher quality standards across distributed teams.  

QA Strategy & Technical Leadership 

-Define and evolve test strategies for microservices and event-driven architectures. 
-Design comprehensive manual and automation-ready test coverage for APIs and messaging systems. 
-Establish quality gates and release readiness criteria. 
-Mentor junior QA engineers and guide offshore QA teams. 
 
Release Planning & Quality Governance

-Represent QA in release planning and sprint planning discussions. 
-Assess release risk and provide clear go/no-go recommendations. 
-Coordinate regression efforts across teams. 
-Ensure production deployments meet quality and stability standards. 
 
Production Support & Troubleshooting 
-Support production issue investigation, including log analysis and data validation. 
-Partner with engineering and DevOps teams during incident triage. 
-Perform root cause analysis and recommend preventive improvements. 
-Improve test coverage based on production defect trends. 
 
Event-Driven & Backend System Validation 
-Lead testing of systems using AWS SQS, Kafka, Kinesis, ActiveMQ. 
-Validate complex message flows, retry mechanisms, and failure scenarios. 
-Ensure data consistency across PostgreSQL and MongoDB. 
-Validate system resiliency, idempotency, and edge-case handling. 
 
Offshore–Onshore Collaboration Leadership 
-Improve communication frameworks between onshore and offshore teams. 
-Define clear test documentation, handoff standards, and reporting structures. 
-Ensure accountability and quality consistency across time zones. 
-Conduct knowledge-sharing sessions and cross-team alignment reviews. 
 
Process Improvement & QA Excellence 
-Identify inefficiencies in QA processes and implement improvements. 
-Drive automation readiness and collaborate closely with automation engineers. 
-Track and report quality metrics (defect leakage, escape rate, regression coverage). 
-Champion shift-left testing and early defect detection. 

Education 
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience). 

Experience 
-5-7+ years of experience in backend QA or quality engineering. 
-Strong experience testing Java-based REST microservices. 
-Proven experience with event-driven systems and messaging platforms. 
-Experience participating in release governance and production support. 
-Experience working with offshore QA teams. 
 
Must-Have Skills 

Technical 
-Deep understanding of REST APIs, HTTP protocols, and JSON validation. 
-Strong experience validating event-driven workflows. 
-Advanced SQL skills and strong MongoDB query knowledge. 
-Experience analyzing logs and debugging distributed systems. 
-Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and release processes. 
-Ability to read and understand Java code for test impact analysis. 

Leadership & Process 
-Ability to define QA strategy and testing standards. 
-Strong communication and stakeholder management skills. 
-Experience improving QA processes and workflows. 
-Strong risk assessment and decision-making capability. 
-Comfortable presenting quality metrics to leadership. 
 
Nice-to-Have / Preferred Skills 
-Experience designing automation frameworks or automation strategies. 
-Performance or load testing experience. 
-Experience with containerized environments (Docker/Kubernetes). 
-Exposure to monitoring tools (Splunk, Datadog, CloudWatch). 
-Prior experience acting as QA lead for a product or domain. 
 
Additional Expectations 
-Acts as a quality advocate across the organization. 
-Proactively identifies gaps in testing and system resiliency. 
-Demonstrates ownership mindset for product quality. 
-Drives measurable improvements in QA efficiency and defect reduction. 
-Balances hands-on testing with strategic oversight.