Senior Software QA Engineer - Query Processing

Ocient Inc.•Only, TN

75d•$145,000 - $190,000•Remote

About The Position

Ocient is seeking a Senior Software QA Engineer with strong expertise in database query processing. This hands-on role provides the opportunity to design and lead end-to-end testing initiatives that validate and enhance Ocient's query processing engine—ensuring stability, performance, scalability as the platform grows. The scope of query processing at Ocient spans the Query Optimizer, Execution Engine, Machine Learning, Database Statistics, and Geospatial components.

Requirements

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent.
4–6 years of experience in database development, administration, or QA engineering, ideally focused on testing and validating query processing behavior and database functionality.
Deep understanding of relational and distributed database systems, with strong skills in SQL query design, execution, and analysis.
Proven experience in test planning, designing, and executing automated, reliable test frameworks and workloads for databases.
Strong QA and debugging skills with the ability to trace issues across query planning, execution, and component interactions within the database engine.
Solid Linux expertise — comfortable monitoring resource utilization, analyzing logs, and understanding how system-level factors influence database behavior.
Proficiency in Python for test automation, diagnostics, and feature validation. Hands-on experience with JIRA, test case management system and version control tools.
Familiarity with cloud environments (AWS or GCP), including deployment and monitoring.
Ability to analyze complex test results, interpret query execution behavior, and derive meaningful insights through visualization and test data analysis. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to convey technical findings clearly to diverse audiences.

Nice To Haves

Passionate about testing complex, large-scale distributed database systems, with a focus on BOTH functional correctness and performance.
Able to dive into the internals of SQL query optimization and execution to become an expert with our query processing.
to validate new query processing features end-to-end—from test planning and execution to resource management—and share results that inform product direction.
Excited to discover how even small changes in query shapes can achieve 10x performance gains, reproduce query performance problems in the lab.
Interested in new workload generation, and understanding how they target performance and stress components of the database, developing infrastructure to measure key performance metrics in a database to understand and identify bottlenecks.
Highly collaborative, with strong communication skills and the ability to work independently to deliver well-designed, meaningful test outcomes.

Responsibilities

Design and execute comprehensive test plans and automated suites to validate new features/optimizations for query processing component of the product.
Develop, run, and analyze regression tests targeting the system-level database functionality — ensuring functional stability, scalability, and performance.
Collaborate strongly with Development team to implement tests onto nightly CI/QA infrastructure, improve existing test coverage and analysis tooling for Query Processing components.
Own end-to-end evaluation of database query processing, partnering across teams to identify behavioral/functional issues, correctness gaps, and opportunities for performance optimization.
Provide technical leadership in defining test strategies, frameworks, and best practices for validating complex query optimization and execution scenarios.
Work cross-functionally with engineering leadership and internal stakeholders to align on feature design goals, ensure test completeness, and drive timely resolution of issues.
Lead the evolution of database testing infrastructure to support scalability, reliability, and reproducibility across functional and system-level query processing tests.
Act as a subject matter expert in query processing functionality, partnering with customer operations and development teams on escalated issues and validation.
Build reproductions of poorly performing customer workloads to investigate issues along with the query processing team on root cause analysis.
Mentor junior engineers, fostering expertise in database query processing and functional testing methodologies.