Staff Test Engineer

NinjaTrader•Chicago, IL

11h•$160,000 - $180,000•Hybrid

About The Position

As a Staff Test Engineer at NinjaTrader, you will be a technical leader and quality evangelist driving testing strategy across complex, scalable systems and multiple engineering squads. You’ll guide automation architecture, establish quality standards, and collaborate across engineering, product, and operations to ensure releases meet the highest standards of reliability and performance. This role requires a deep understanding of both functional and non-functional testing, automation frameworks, and system-level quality assurance strategies.

Requirements

9+ years of relevant experience in QA or software testing roles
Proven expertise in both manual and automated testing for complex distributed systems
Experience designing automation strategies and frameworks for scalable applications
Strong skills in API testing, integration testing, and cross-platform validation
Hands-on experience with CI/CD tools and automation pipelines
Ability to guide teams in troubleshooting application, database, and cloud issues
Excellent communication skills and collaborative mindset
Familiarity with testing across messaging queues, security, performance, and fault tolerance scenarios
Strong knowledge of Linux and Windows environments
Experience evaluating and implementing QA metrics, tools, and training strategies
Proven track record of mentoring, onboarding, and upskilling QA/SDET teams

Nice To Haves

Experience with BDD/ATDD frameworks and modern automation testing libraries
Familiarity with testing in cloud-native and microservices environments
History of contributions to QA process improvements or innovations
Involvement in test tooling evaluations and feasibility studies
Prior leadership experience in building quality culture within high-performing engineering teams

Responsibilities

Define and maintain end-to-end test strategies across client and server platforms, serving as the subject matter expert for quality across multiple products and teams.
Design and guide implementation of automation frameworks and test architecture, ensuring scalability and maintainability across teams.
Collaborate with developers to ensure automation-friendly application design.
Establish performance and non-functional testing benchmarks, driving continuous measurement and improvement across releases.
Drive the evaluation and adoption of innovative QA tools and technologies.
Define and track quality gates, coverage metrics, and QA KPIs, ensuring they are actionable and drive measurable improvements in release quality and stability.
Mentor QA and SDET team members on best practices, including SOLID, DRY, and KISS principles
Participate in defining onboarding plans and training strategies for QA new hires and contractors
Create, review, and execute end-to-end system integration and performance tests
Conduct root cause and gap analysis for issues across environments and systems
Drive enhancements to CI/CD pipelines and ensure automation suite scalability, reliability, and performance.
Provide expert-level input on API testing, database validation, and test data design
Support cross-team initiatives and maintain alignment with organizational quality objectives
Partner with engineering and DevOps to define observability and reliability testing strategies that validate system resilience, fault tolerance, and recovery under production-like conditions.