Software Engineer Sr - Backend Quality Engineer/Automation

PNC•Birmingham, VA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

At PNC, our people are our greatest differentiator and competitive advantage in the markets we serve. We are all united in delivering the best experience for our customers. We work together each day to foster an inclusive workplace culture where all of our employees feel respected, valued and have an opportunity to contribute to the company’s success. As a Software Engineer Sr- Backend Quality Engineer/Automation within PNC's Technology organization, you can be based in Birmingham, AL; Strongsville, OH; Dallas, TX; Pittsburgh, PA; Cleveland, OH; Phoenix, AZ or home location in Virginia. The Lending Payments platform delivers business-critical money movement capabilities. Quality Engineering is a proactive, end-to-end discipline that integrates quality principles throughout the delivery lifecycle (not just late-stage testing). This role focuses on building and scaling automated testing capabilities, strengthening quality gates, and reducing defect leakage through disciplined test strategy, automation frameworks, and reliable execution in CI/CD. This position may be eligible for remote work in select geographic locations, subject to approval by PNC. If approved, work must be conducted from a quiet, secure, and confidential home-based workspace. Occasional in-office participation may be required based on business needs. PNC will not provide sponsorship for employment visas or participate in STEM OPT for this position.

Requirements

Strong experience in test automation engineering (building and maintaining automation frameworks and suites).
Experience designing layered test strategies and integrating automated tests into CI/CD with meaningful quality gates.
Comfort partnering with developers on testability, defect prevention, and release readiness; evidence-based communication style.
Experience testing APIs/services and validating data flows; working familiarity with SQL and data validation concepts is a plus.
Experience in regulated or high-integrity domains (payments, banking, money movement) with strong focus on correctness and auditability.
Experience with BDD-style executable specifications and/or API automation tools commonly used in enterprise environments (tool-agnostic).
Experience with performance testing concepts and test data management practices.
Bachelors
Roles at this level typically require a university / college degree, with 3+ years of relevant / direct industry experience.
In lieu of a degree, a comparable combination of education, job specific certification(s), and experience (including military service) may be considered.

Nice To Haves

Application Development
Automation Engineering
Backend Testing
Business Management
CI/CD
Continuous Integration (CI) Tools
Customer Solutions
Design
Group Problem Solving
Process Improvements
Release Management
Software Solutions
User Experience (UX) Design
Application Delivery Process
Application Design
Architecture
Application Development Tools
Application Testing
Packaged Application Integration
System Development Life Cycle
Technical Troubleshooting
Technical Writing/Documentation

Responsibilities

Hands-on ownership of automation frameworks and suites for one or more services/products.
Drives automation coverage and reliability improvements; owns triage workflows and reduces flakiness and runtime.
Partners with engineers to ensure stories are testable and quality gates are met before promotion.
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.
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).
Partner with Engineers, Architects, and Business Systems Analyst/Product Owners early to clarify acceptance criteria, edge cases, and testability; translate behavior into executable checks where appropriate.
Provide quality feedback during design and product review cycles; promote testability, observability, and safe change patterns.
Support release readiness by validating test evidence and coordinating with change/release processes as needed.
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.

Benefits

medical/prescription drug coverage (with a Health Savings Account feature)
dental and vision options
employee and spouse/child life insurance
short and long-term disability protection
401(k) with PNC match
pension and stock purchase plans
dependent care reimbursement account
back-up child/elder care
adoption, surrogacy, and doula reimbursement
educational assistance, including select programs fully paid
a robust wellness program with financial incentives
maternity and/or parental leave
up to 11 paid holidays each year
9 occasional absence days each year, unless otherwise required by law
between 15 to 25 vacation days each year, depending on career level; and years of service.