Senior QA Engineer

Accountabilities: Embed fully within an engineering squad , participating in sprint planning, daily standups, reviews, retrospectives, and other ceremonies as a core technical contributor. Define and refine acceptance criteria with Product Owners, identifying ambiguity and quality risks before implementation begins. Own the squad’s test architecture and strategy , determining how unit, integration, contract, and end-to-end testing work together and identifying coverage gaps. Lead performance and load testing , establishing baselines, evaluating throughput and concurrency limits, and translating findings into actionable engineering improvements. Own the squad’s Definition of Done and quality gates , serving as a final internal quality check before releases progress to staging or production. Design, maintain, and improve automated test suites that remain reliable, readable, maintainable, and effective within CI environments. Triage complex test failures and distinguish flaky tests from genuine regressions , particularly across high-traffic, high-risk, or highly integrated areas. Mentor QA Engineers within the squad and across the wider QA community, raising standards around automation, test design, and engineering practices. Represent the squad in broader QA initiatives and contribute to chapter-wide standards, tooling decisions, onboarding resources, and testing practices . Take ownership of a strategic QA initiative, such as a contract-testing framework, performance-testing toolkit, testing discipline, or AI-assisted test generation workflow. Actively leverage AI and LLM tooling for test case generation, synthetic data creation, regression triage, documentation, and other areas where automation can accelerate QA work. Requirements: 5+ years of QA engineering experience in a software product environment, with demonstrated ownership of testing strategy for complex technical domains. Strong test automation engineering skills, with the ability to write production-quality tests in Java, Python, or JavaScript and build stable, maintainable suites that run effectively in CI. Deep experience with API testing , including REST APIs, contract testing, integration testing, HTTP semantics, and JSON schema validation. Hands-on experience with performance and load testing , including designing tests, interpreting throughput and concurrency results, identifying bottlenecks, and translating findings into engineering action. Strong experience working in Java-based backend environments , with the ability to understand application architecture, read Java code, and create tests that accurately reflect system behavior. High level of technical autonomy and confidence operating without a dedicated QA manager, with the ability to make sound quality decisions and represent QA practices across teams. Proven ability to mentor other QA engineers , improve engineering standards, and lead through technical expertise rather than formal authority. Experience in fintech, payments, or digital financial services is strongly preferred, particularly where reliability and correctness are critical. Familiarity with contract testing tools such as Pact or equivalent approaches within microservices environments is a strong advantage. Mobile testing experience, particularly Android , using tools such as Espresso or Appium, or structured manual testing supported by regression frameworks, is beneficial. Experience contributing to a QA chapter, guild, community of practice, or internal training program is valued. Familiarity with AI-assisted QA workflows , including LLM-based test generation, regression analysis, and synthetic test data creation, is a plus. Benefits: Opportunity to work as a senior technical individual contributor with substantial ownership and influence. Full integration into a product squad, with a direct role in engineering decisions and product delivery rather than functioning as a downstream QA resource. Opportunity to shape testing standards, architecture, tooling, and quality practices beyond your immediate squad. Strong platform for technical leadership and mentoring without requiring a transition into people management. Exposure to complex, high-scale fintech and digital financial services systems where software quality has a direct customer and business impact. Opportunity to lead organization-wide QA initiatives and introduce improved testing disciplines and tooling. Flexible European-based working environment with collaboration across international engineering teams. Opportunity to work with AI-assisted testing and modern QA automation practices as part of an evolving engineering environment.