Test Engineer Intern

PAYLOCITY CORPORATION•Town of Pittsford, NY

About The Position

The Test Engineer Intern will join Paylocity’s Implementation Engineering team, which builds and supports internal tools, integrations, and automations to improve operational efficiency and business outcomes. The team works with engineers, business partners, subject-matter experts, and end users to ensure solutions work correctly, safely, and consistently across real workflows, roles, systems, and company-specific configurations. This 12-week summer internship provides hands-on experience in software quality and test engineering. The intern will support internal software and business initiatives, learn how cross-functional teams identify needs, deliver solutions, and measure outcomes, and complete a meaningful project aligned with Implementation Engineering goals. The program includes onboarding, mentorship, job shadowing, reverse shadowing, weekly learning activities, leadership conversations, workshops, peer networking, and an Intern Summit at Paylocity’s headquarters. Interns present their work and recommendations to managers and leaders and share their learning and results in mid-point and final presentations. The experience is intended to build practical skills for a potential full-time opportunity after graduation.

Requirements

Actively enrolled in a bachelor’s degree program with anticipated graduation between December 2027 and May 2028.
GPA of 3.0 or higher.
Strong technical aptitude and interest in software quality and test engineering.
Excellent time management, analytical thinking, persistence, and problem-solving skills.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including precise evidence documentation, issue reproduction, and clear explanation of quality risks without overstating certainty.
High attention to detail and commitment to process adherence, data responsibility, confidentiality, and working safely in approved environments.
Ability to sit at a desk or workstation for extended periods, typically 7–8 hours a day.
Ability to operate a computer, use phone systems, type, and use multiple software programs and inquiries simultaneously.

Nice To Haves

A technical major such as Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Data Science, Mathematics, or a related field.
Coursework, projects, or practical exposure related to software engineering, software testing, web applications, APIs, databases, automation, data analysis, or troubleshooting.
Familiarity with HTTP, REST APIs, JSON, SQL, browser developer tools, logs, Git, Jira, or an API client such as Postman, Bruno, or Insomnia.
Exposure to a programming language such as Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, or C#; willingness to learn is emphasized over mastery.

Responsibilities

Review requirements, user stories, process maps, acceptance criteria, prior defects, and end-user feedback; translate them into clear, risk-based test plans, scenarios, test cases, test data, and expected results.
Perform REST API testing, including requests and responses, status codes, schemas, authentication and authorization, validation rules, error handling, data persistence, negative and boundary conditions, and repeat-run behavior.
Execute functional, smoke, regression, integration, exploratory, usability, and end-to-end testing across supported environments and workflows.
Validate complete business journeys, including user actions, APIs, integrations, data updates, workflow decisions, approvals, downstream systems, notifications, and final user-visible outcomes.
Test permissions, role-based access, restricted actions, intended task actors, notification recipients, and data isolation across users, companies, clients, modules, and environments.
Test dependencies and failure modes, including unavailable resources, missing forms or files, invalid references, partial success, delays, timeouts, retries, safe skips, recovery behavior, and user-facing warnings.
Use representative company and client configurations to verify that company-specific data, identifiers, attachments, security groups, notifications, and other sensitive references are not exposed or carried into the wrong destination.
Create actionable Jira defects with reproducible steps, expected and actual results, environment and test-data details, screenshots or logs, severity, business impact, and links to related requirements or test cases.
Partner with engineers, subject-matter experts, and end users to facilitate user acceptance testing, verify fixes, summarize pass/fail status and residual risks, and maintain reusable regression suites, checklists, evidence, and test documentation.
Complete a meaningful project aligned to Implementation Engineering goals, develop recommendations, and present work to managers and leaders.
Participate in internship onboarding, learning activities, mentorship, job shadowing, workshops, peer networking, leadership conversations, and mid-point and final presentations.