Principal QA Automation Engineer - Test Automation Architect & Lead

R&D Test Automation Principal Quality Engineer 2

Company Description

SBS is a global financial technology company that’s helping banks and the financial services industry to reimagine how to operate in an increasingly digital world. SBS is a trusted partner of more than 1,500 financial institutions and large-scale lenders in 80 countries worldwide, including Santander, Societé Generale, KCB Bank, Kensington Mortgages, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota FS. Its cloud platform offers clients a composable architecture to digitize operations, ranging from banking, lending, compliance, to payments, and consumer and asset finance. With 3,400 employees in 50 offices, SBS is recognized as a Top 10 European Fintech company by IDC and as a leader in Omdia’s Universe: Digital Banking Platforms.

Job Description

About the Role

Join us as a QA Automation Architect & Lead for a fintech product company developing a cloud-native core banking and payments SaaS platform for the European market. In this pivotal role, you will spearhead the end-to-end test automation strategy and act as a champion of quality in a fast-paced, Agile environment. You’ll work hands-on with modern technologies (Java/Spring Boot, Kotlin, Angular, Cypress, K6, AWS) to build robust testing frameworks, ensuring our platform handles complex banking transactions while meeting stringent regulatory compliance standard. This is a high-impact, leadership position where you’ll influence engineering culture, drive an automation-first mindset, and ensure that quality is baked into every step of the software development lifecycle.

What You’ll Do (Responsibilities)

1. Design and Implement Test Automation Strategy: Develop and own a comprehensive test automation strategy covering all levels of testing – unit, component, integration, and end-to-end – across the platform’s microservices and user interfaces. Ensure that each layer of the tech stack has appropriate automated test coverage for fast, high-quality releases.
2. Drive Full-Stack Test Coverage: Proactively identify functional coverage gaps and under-tested areas – especially in the UI, API, and caching layers (e.g. Redis) – and address them with improved automated tests. Continuously raise the bar on test effectiveness by expanding coverage and improving test scenarios for edge cases and failure conditions.
3. Build & Enhance Automation Frameworks: Architect and implement robust test automation frameworks for different domains of testing as required. This includes improving our UI automation (using Cypress or similar), strengthening API testing frameworks (using K6 or similar), and establishing performance testing to simulate load and stress. You will ensure these frameworks are scalable, maintainable, and aligned with a modern JVM/Spring Boot & Angular tech stack.
4. Select and Integrate Testing Tools: Evaluate and implement or enhance the right set of automation tools and libraries that best fit our stack (Java/Kotlin, Spring Boot backend, Angular frontend). If needed, introduce new tools or testing approaches (e.g. BDD, contract testing) to improve quality. Ensure that our choice of tools (testing frameworks, assertion libraries, reporting tools) maximizes efficiency and developer friendliness.
5. Embed Testing in CI/CD Pipelines: Integrate automated tests into our GitLab CI/CD pipelines as quality gates. Implement continuous testing practices so that every code commit triggers automated test suites (unit, API, UI, performance), providing rapid feedback on failures. You will lead the evolution of our continuous testing strategy within the CI/CD pipeline, ensuring that no code reaches production without passing the necessary checks.
6. Manage Test Environments & Data: Oversee test environment provisioning and test data management. Use AWS cloud infrastructure and Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform) to set up and tear down test environments on demand, automate test data creation/seeding, and ensure test environments mimic production for reliable results. Maintain data integrity and compliance (GDPR, PCI DSS, etc.) in test datasets given the regulatory environment.
7. Collaborate and Champion Quality: Work closely with developers, DevOps engineers, product managers, and other stakeholders to instill an automation-first mindset. Through design reviews, code reviews, and regular sync-ups, ensure testing considerations are part of planning and development. Act as a quality evangelist, coaching teams on best practices and helping to troubleshoot testing challenges. Influence and improve the overall engineering quality culture, making sure that quality is a shared responsibility across the team.
8. Ensure Compliance and Reliability: In a SaaS, cloud-native environment with rapid sprint cycles, ensure our test processes and frameworks account for strict regulatory constraints and security requirements of the banking domain. Design test scenarios for regulatory compliance (e.g. PSD2, GDPR, PCI) and fail-safes for sensitive financial workflows, so that our platform remains compliant and reliable under all conditions.
9. Monitor, Report, and Improve: Define and track quality KPIs such as automated test coverage, test pass rates, defect leakage, and performance benchmarks. Regularly report on quality status to stakeholders. Use these insights to continually improve test strategies – optimize test execution time, enhance CI/CD feedback loops, and ensure that automation delivers tangible value in catching issues early.

Technologies You’ll Work With

1. Programming & Frameworks: Java, Kotlin, Spring Boot, Angular, and related tech stack components.
2. Test Automation: Cypress, K6 and more to be decided by you.
3. CI/CD & DevOps: GitLab CI/CD for pipelines, Git version control (merge request workflows), Docker (containerizing tests or services), Kubernetes (for deploying test environments or services), Terraform (IaC for AWS resources).
4. Cloud & Data Stores: AWS services (EC2, S3, RDS, etc.) for environment and data management, Redis for caching layers (to be included in test scenarios), relational databases (e.g. PostgreSQL/MySQL) for validating data persistence.
5. Tools & Monitoring: Jira and X-Ray for bug/test management, Confluence or similar for documentation, and monitoring tools (CloudWatch, Grafana) to observe test environment health during runs.

Why Join Us

1. Impactful Mission: Be a part of building a next-generation core banking platform from the ground up. Your work will directly ensure that banks and financial institutions across Europe can trust our platform for secure and reliable operations. You’ll have a tangible impact on the quality of a product handling real customer money and transactions, which is a responsibility we take seriously.
2. Cutting-Edge Environment: Work in a modern, cloud-native tech environment with a focus on innovation. We use the latest tools and methodologies – from advanced test automation frameworks to cloud DevOps – giving you exposure to a state-of-the-art fintech stack. If you’re passionate about staying up-to-date with technology and continuously improving, you’ll fit right in.
3. Culture of Quality and Collaboration: Join a collaborative, Agile team that values automation, DevOps culture, and continuous improvement. Quality isn’t a checkbox here – it’s a collective value. You’ll find supportive peers in engineering, product, and DevOps who are eager to work with QA to ship better software. We foster an environment where your voice is heard, and you can drive meaningful change.
4. Growth & Leadership Opportunities: As the QA Automation Architect & Lead, you’ll have ownership of the testing strategy and the opportunity to grow a team and function over time. You’ll be seen as a thought leader for quality, influencing best practices across the engineering department. This role positions you for future growth in architecture or engineering leadership as the company scales.
5. Competitive Benefits & Work-Life Balance: We offer a competitive salary and benefits package. Our Noida office provides a people friendly work culture and an environment that encourages learning. Expect opportunities for training, attending industry conferences, and dedicating time to researching new tools or approaches – we invest in our team’s professional development.

Total Experience Expected: 17-20 years

Qualifications

What You’ll Bring (Qualifications & Experience)

1. Extensive QA & Automation Experience: Bachelor’s/Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field (or equivalent experience). 12 to 25+ years in software testing/QA, with at least a few years in a test automation architect or lead role for complex software products. You have a track record of designing automation solutions for large-scale, distributed systems.
2. Hands-on Automation Skills: Proven experience in building and maintaining automated test frameworks for web applications and APIs. You are a hands-on coder with deep programming skills in languages like Java or other JVM languages, and comfortable scripting in JavaScript/TypeScript or Python when needed. You write clean, maintainable test code and are familiar with design patterns for test automation.
3. Testing Framework Expertise: In-depth knowledge of modern testing tools and frameworks. You have worked with UI automation (e.g. Cypress, Selenium, or Playwright), API testing (e.g. K6, RestAssured, Postman/Newman, or similar), and performance testing tools (e.g. k6, JMeter, Gatling). You understand testing across different layers – including contract testing of microservices, database validation, and can even script tests around caching layers like Redis if required.
4. CI/CD and DevOps Know-how: Solid experience integrating test automation into CI/CD pipelines. You are familiar with Git-based workflows and tools like GitLab CI (or Jenkins/Azure DevOps etc.), and can write pipeline scripts/jobs to run tests, handle artifacts, and report results. Knowledge of Docker/Kubernetes for containerized test execution is a plus.
5. Cloud and Infrastructure Skills: Experience working in cloud environments (AWS) and using Terraform or other IaC tools to manage infrastructure. You understand how to set up test environments in the cloud, manage configurations (perhaps using Docker compose or Kubernetes manifests), and utilize cloud services for testing (S3, databases, etc.).
6. Quality Mindset & Soft Skills: An automation-first mindset – you consistently look to automate repetitive testing tasks and reduce manual effort. Excellent analytical and problem-solving abilities to debug test failures and pinpoint issues across complex systems. Strong collaboration and communication skills to work with cross-functional teams and to advocate for quality practices. You are comfortable leading discussions on testing strategy, providing constructive feedback, and influencing without authority when necessary.
7. Attention to Detail and Accountability: A keen eye for detail in identifying edge cases, race conditions, and potential failure points that others might miss. High sense of ownership and accountability for product quality – you take pride in catching issues early and ensuring the customer experience is flawless.

Preferred Qualifications

1. Domain Expertise: Experience in banking, fintech, or financial services domains, especially in core banking, payments, or digital lending. Understanding of banking workflows and regulations helps you design better test scenarios and compliance checks.
2. Performance & Security Testing: Advanced experience with performance testing (analyzing throughput, latency, bottlenecks) and exposure to security testing in financial applications. Familiarity with tools for security scanning or vulnerability testing in CI/CD is a plus.
3. Leadership & Certifications: Prior experience leading a QA/Automation team or mentoring other QA engineers. Relevant certifications (e.g. ISTQB Advanced Test Manager/Architect, Certified Agile Testing, AWS Cloud Practitioner) can be a plus, but proven skills matter more.
4. Additional Tools: Exposure to monitoring/observability tools (e.g. Grafana, Kibana) to correlate test results with system metrics. Experience with contract testing (e.g. Pact) or service virtualization in complex integrations. Any experience in using AI/ML tools for testing or predictive quality analytics would be an extra bonus (showing you stay on the cutting edge).

Additional Information

 

Secondary Location:Noida Campus

At our organization, we are committed to fighting against all forms of discrimination. We foster a work environment that is inclusive and respectful of all differences.

All of our positions are open to people with disabilities.

Experience Level

Senior Level