Senior QA Engineer – Backend Services, Automation & Performance Testing

Astra Tech Group; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Astra Tech Group is seeking a Senior QA Engineer for Backend Services, Automation & Performance Testing. You will design and execute robust test strategies for distributed microservices, building scalable automation for API, integration, and database validation while ensuring data integrity and system reliability.

The role requires 5+ years in backend QA, strong SQL and programming skills (Java/Python), and hands-on experience with AI-assisted testing to boost efficiency and root-cause analysis.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
• 5+ years of QA experience focusing on backend services, distributed systems, or large-scale enterprise apps.
• Strong hands-on API automation, integration testing, and database validation.
• Experience with performance testing tools: JMeter, k6, Gatling or equivalent.
• AI-assisted software engineering experience and ability to leverage LLM-based tools.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and execute test strategies for backend services.
• Validate complex backend workflows across distributed microservices.
• Develop and maintain scalable automation frameworks for API, integration, and DB validation.
• Design and execute performance, load, stress, and endurance tests.
• Analyze bottlenecks using logs, tracing, and profiling; provide optimizations.
• Validate data consistency across databases, queues, and downstream services.
• Debug backend issues involving asynchronous processing and distributed transactions.
• Leverage AI-assisted tools to improve testing efficiency and root-cause analysis.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, DevOps, and architecture teams.

Skills

API automation

SQL proficiency

Java

Python

CI/CD pipelines

Distributed systems

Performance testing

AI-assisted testing

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in CS/Engineering

Tools

JMeter

k6

Gatling

Kafka

RabbitMQ

Docker

Job description

Position: Senior QA Engineer – Backend Services, Automation & Performance Testing

Key Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and execute comprehensive test strategies for backend services, covering functional, integration, automation, and performance testing.

• Validate complex backend business workflows across distributed microservices, ensuring system reliability, data consistency, and service stability.

• Develop and maintain scalable automation frameworks for API, integration, and database validation to support CI/CD pipelines.

• Design and execute performance, load, stress, and endurance testing to evaluate system scalability, stability, and capacity under high transaction volumes.

• Analyze performance bottlenecks using logs, metrics, distributed tracing, thread dumps, and database profiling, and provide optimization recommendations.

• Validate data consistency and transaction integrity across databases, message queues, and downstream services.

• Debug complex backend issues involving asynchronous processing, distributed transactions, and event-driven architectures.

• Leverage AI-assisted software engineering tools to improve test design, automation development, defect analysis, root cause analysis, and overall engineering productivity.

• Collaborate closely with engineering, product, DevOps, and architecture teams to ensure high-quality delivery of backend services.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

• 5+ years of QA experience focusing on backend services, distributed systems, or large-scale enterprise applications.

• Strong hands-on experience in API automation, integration testing, database validation, and end-to-end backend testing.

• Solid experience with performance testing tools such as JMeter, k6, Gatling, or equivalent.

• Strong understanding of distributed microservices, REST APIs, asynchronous messaging systems (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ), and event-driven architectures.

• Experience analyzing performance bottlenecks using monitoring platforms, distributed tracing, application logs, and database profiling.

• Strong SQL skills with experience validating data consistency across multiple systems.

• Proficiency in at least one programming language such as Java or Python.

• AI-assisted software engineering experience is required, with demonstrated ability to leverage LLM-based tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, or similar) to improve testing efficiency, automation development, debugging, and root cause analysis.

• Hands-on experience applying AI to software testing, including AI-assisted test case generation, automation development, intelligent defect analysis, or test workflow optimization.

• Excellent debugging, troubleshooting, and root cause analysis skills for complex backend systems.

• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and modern software development practices.

• Fluent in spoken and written English.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in fintech, banking, payment, lending, or other transaction-intensive systems.

• Experience testing high-concurrency and high-availability backend services.

• Familiarity with cloud-native technologies and observability tools such as Docker, Kubernetes, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, or Jaeger.