Sr Lead SW Quality Engineer

Northern Trust • Chicago, IL

2d • $95,600 - $162,400 • Onsite

About The Position

Northern Trust is seeking a Sr. Lead, Quality Engineering to join its Corporate Applications testing team in Chicago. The role is responsible for establishing and executing quality strategy across multiple agile teams, including test planning, automation, execution, reporting, release governance, and continuous quality signals to support frequent deployments. The successful candidate will combine leadership, banking domain knowledge, and technical expertise in modern Quality Engineering practices, and will partner with Product, Engineering, Architecture, Risk, Compliance, Finance, and Business stakeholders to embed quality throughout the software delivery lifecycle.

The position covers large-scale Corporate area implementations and enterprise testing initiatives. It includes leading and mentoring quality engineers, improving automation suites and processes, supporting CI/CT/CD pipelines, and developing release-confidence frameworks and quality dashboards. The role also encourages the use of AI-enabled Quality Engineering solutions to improve productivity, coverage, and defect prevention.

Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States without current or future employment-based visa sponsorship. The stated base salary range is $95,600–$162,400 USD. Northern Trust describes a comprehensive benefits package that includes retirement benefits, health and welfare benefits, paid time off, parental and caregiver leave, insurance, and voluntary and well-being benefits. A discretionary bonus may include an equity component.

Requirements

• Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Engineering, or Information Technology, or equivalent.
• 10–15 years of overall experience, including at least 8 years in Quality Engineering.
• 5–8 years of experience implementing test strategy, planning, execution, coordination, reporting, metrics, quality improvement, and assessments.
• 5–8 years of experience leading teams of quality engineers or contractors.
• Proven experience managing globally distributed teams across multiple vendors and partners.
• Excellent knowledge of SDLC and Agile development practices.
• Lead-level exposure to Java, Selenium or LeanFT, BDD (Cucumber/JBehave), TestNG, Eclipse or IntelliJ, and Playwright.
• Experience with DevOps/CI/CD tools including Maven, Git, BitBucket, and Azure DevOps.
• Expertise in QA processes, techniques, and methodologies.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Attention to detail and the ability to identify broader implications and recommend strategic solutions.
• Self-starter who is positive, adaptable, and able to multitask in a continually changing environment.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively.
• Proven interpersonal and communication skills with technical and business partners.
• Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States without employment-based visa sponsorship now or in the future.

Nice To Haves

• Experience leading large-scale, end-to-end testing initiatives, including test strategy, planning, execution, automation, and reporting.
• Exposure to AI-enabled software testing and next-generation Quality Engineering solutions.
• Proven ability to lead and collaborate in global, cross-functional teams.
• Familiarity with banking, financial services, risk, or compliance domains.
• Experience leading a large program.
• Experience supporting regulatory compliance platforms, corporate finance technology, corporate risk technologies, or payment and financial processing systems.

Responsibilities

• Define and own testing strategies and plans for Corporate area domains and large-scale implementations.
• Provide thought leadership, consultation, mentoring, and guidance for test automation.
• Advance product quality through testing innovations and process improvements.
• Collaborate with business analysts, architects, and developers to design testable applications.
• Resolve technical issues, anticipate risks, and ensure timely escalation and management.
• Analyze defects and issues to determine root causes.
• Communicate and influence effectively with technical and non-technical audiences.
• Analyze, optimize, improve, and maintain existing test automation suites.
• Understand enterprise and program-level business workflows and create test plans for changes.
• Promote and support automated CI/CT/CD pipeline implementation.
• Develop and extend UI, microservices, and API test automation.
• Facilitate automated, on-demand test automation metrics.
• Ensure automated tests run early and often to provide quick team feedback.
• Seek stakeholder feedback through test automation demonstrations.
• Accelerate test development by leveraging existing assets, standards, and best practices, and extend libraries with functions and methods for continuous improvement.
• Develop release-confidence frameworks to support go/no-go decisions.
• Use AI-enabled Quality Engineering solutions to improve productivity, coverage, and defect prevention.
• Establish enterprise dashboards and quality scorecards using Azure DevOps and reporting platforms.
• Lead quality engineers and contractors and manage globally distributed teams across vendors and partners.

Benefits

• Retirement benefits, including a 401(k) and pension.
• Health and welfare benefits, including medical, dental, vision, spending accounts, and disability benefits.
• Paid time off.
• Parental and caregiver leave.
• Life and accident insurance.
• Other voluntary and well-being benefits.
• Discretionary bonus program that may include an equity component.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior