Senior QA Engineer

Lever, Inc.; Deutschland; On-site; EUR 85,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

Lever, Inc. in Germany seeks a Senior QA Engineer embedded in a product squad to own quality strategy for high‑risk domains. You will shape test architecture, acceptance criteria, and automation while collaborating with engineering and product teams from the outset.

The role emphasizes performance testing, contract testing, and AI-assisted QA workflows, with mentoring duties across the QA community and a focus on reliable fintech systems. German-based, senior individual contributor.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of QA engineering experience in a software product environment.
• Ability to write production-quality tests in Java, Python, or JavaScript.
• Deep experience with API testing including REST, contract testing, integration testing, HTTP semantics and JSON schema validation.
• Hands-on experience with performance and load testing and translating results into engineering actions.
• Strong experience working in Java-based backend environments and understanding of architecture.
• High level of autonomy and ability to drive QA practices without a dedicated QA manager.
• Proven ability to mentor other QA engineers and lead by technical expertise.
• Experience in fintech, payments, or digital financial services is strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted QA workflows and LLM tooling is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Embed within an engineering squad as a core technical contributor.
• Define and refine acceptance criteria with Product Owners before implementation.
• Own the squad’s test architecture and strategy to cover unit, integration, contract, and end-to-end tests.
• Lead performance and load testing and translate findings into improvements.
• Own the Definition of Done and quality gates for releases to staging/production.
• Design, maintain, and improve automated test suites within CI environments.
• Triage complex test failures and distinguish flaky tests from regressions.
• Mentor QA Engineers across squads and contribute to QA standards.
• Represent QA in chapter-wide initiatives and tooling decisions.
• Lead strategic QA initiatives such as contract-testing or performance toolkits.
• Leverage AI and LLM tooling for test generation, data creation, and regression analysis.

Skills

QA engineering

Test automation

API testing

Performance testing

Java/Python/JS

Java backend

Mentoring

Fintech domain

AI-assisted QA

Tools

Pact

Espresso

Appium

Job description

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Senior QA Engineer based in Germany.

This is a senior individual-contributor role embedded directly within a product squad working on complex, high-risk technology domains.
You’ll act as the squad’s technical authority on quality, shaping test strategy, automation, performance, and integration practices.
The role goes beyond test execution, giving you ownership of architecture, quality gates, and the most challenging testing problems.
You’ll work closely with engineering and product teams from the earliest stages, challenging ambiguity before development begins.
You’ll also contribute to broader QA standards, mentor engineers, and lead initiatives that improve testing across the wider organization.
The environment values technical depth, autonomy, continuous improvement, and practical use of modern AI-assisted QA tooling.
It’s an opportunity to make a meaningful impact on reliable, high-scale financial technology as a senior technical leader without moving into management.

Accountabilities

• Embed fully within an engineering squad, participating in sprint planning, daily standups, reviews, retrospectives, and other ceremonies as a core technical contributor.
• Define and refine acceptance criteria with Product Owners, identifying ambiguity and quality risks before implementation begins.
• Own the squad’s test architecture and strategy, determining how unit, integration, contract, and end-to-end testing work together and identifying coverage gaps.
• Lead performance and load testing, establishing baselines, evaluating throughput and concurrency limits, and translating findings into actionable engineering improvements.
• Own the squad’s Definition of Done and quality gates, serving as a final internal quality check before releases progress to staging or production.
• Design, maintain, and improve automated test suites that remain reliable, readable, maintainable, and effective within CI environments.
• Triage complex test failures and distinguish flaky tests from genuine regressions, particularly across high-traffic, high-risk, or highly integrated areas.
• Mentor QA Engineers within the squad and across the wider QA community, raising standards around automation, test design, and engineering practices.
• Represent the squad in broader QA initiatives and contribute to chapter-wide standards, tooling decisions, onboarding resources, and testing practices.
• Take ownership of a strategic QA initiative, such as a contract-testing framework, performance-testing toolkit, testing discipline, or AI-assisted test generation workflow.
• Actively leverage AI and LLM tooling for test case generation, synthetic data creation, regression triage, documentation, and other areas where automation can accelerate QA work.

Requirements:

• 5+ years of QA engineering experience in a software product environment, with demonstrated ownership of testing strategy for complex technical domains.
• Strong test automation engineering skills, with the ability to write production-quality tests in Java, Python, or JavaScript and build stable, maintainable suites that run effectively in CI.
• Deep experience with API testing, including REST APIs, contract testing, integration testing, HTTP semantics, and JSON schema validation.
• Hands‑on experience with performance and load testing, including designing tests, interpreting throughput and concurrency results, identifying bottlenecks, and translating findings into engineering action.
• Strong experience working in Java‑based backend environments, with the ability to understand application architecture, read Java code, and create tests that accurately reflect system behavior.
• High level of technical autonomy and confidence operating without a dedicated QA manager, with the ability to make sound quality decisions and represent QA practices across teams.
• Proven ability to mentor other QA engineers, improve engineering standards, and lead through technical expertise rather than formal authority.
• Experience in fintech, payments, or digital financial services is strongly preferred, particularly where reliability and correctness are critical.
• Familiarity with contract testing tools such as Pact or equivalent approaches within microservices environments is a strong advantage.
• Mobile testing experience, particularly Android, using tools such as Espresso or Appium, or structured manual testing supported by regression frameworks, is beneficial.
• Experience contributing to a QA chapter, guild, community of practice, or internal training program is valued.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted QA workflows, including LLM‑based test generation, regression analysis, and synthetic test data creation, is a plus.

Benefits:

• Opportunity to work as a senior technical individual contributor with substantial ownership and influence.
• Full integration into a product squad, with a direct role in engineering decisions and product delivery rather than functioning as a downstream QA resource.
• Opportunity to shape testing standards, architecture, tooling, and quality practices beyond your immediate squad.
• Strong platform for technical leadership and mentoring without requiring a transition into people management.
• Exposure to complex, high-scale fintech and digital financial services systems where software quality has a direct customer and business impact.
• Opportunity to lead organization‑wide QA initiatives and introduce improved testing disciplines and tooling.
• Flexible European‑based working environment with collaboration across international engineering teams.
• Opportunity to work with AI-assisted testing and modern QA automation practices as part of an evolving engineering environment.

How Jobgether works:

We use an AI-powered matching process to ensure your application is reviewed quickly, objectively, and fairly against the role’s core requirements. Our system identifies the top‑fitting candidates, and this shortlist is then shared directly with the hiring company. The final decision and next steps (interviews, assessments) are managed by their internal team.

We appreciate your interest and wish you the best!

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