Principal QA Engineer

Sporttrade, LLC.; Camden, Northern (NJ, KY); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive Base Salary

Medical, Dental, and Vision Benefits:

Short- & Long-Term Disability

401(k) Plan

Flexible time off

MacBooks issued to all employees

Job summary

Sporttrade is seeking a Principal QA Engineer to own and evolve quality across our trading and clearing platform, including matching engines, APIs, and client apps. You will set the quality bar, align with product and engineering, and ensure coverage from specs to delivery.

In this hands-on role, lead automation across production tests, drive structured Agile practices, and ensure safe, rapid releases with AI-assisted tooling awareness. Collaboration across teams is essential.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in QA or SDET roles with ownership of automated suites running against production systems.
• Automation in a modern stack with CI/CD; operating in a fast-moving startup environment.
• Experience testing APIs and distributed systems, not only UIs.
• Mobile testing on iOS and Android.
• Background in fintech/payments/high-reliability environments.
• Judgment on what to automate for confidence per maintenance effort.

Responsibilities

• Own unit, integration, and end-to-end test suites; raise signal, reduce flakes, and build trustable pipelines.
• Define testing criteria as we move to a structured Agile process with clear release gates.
• Collaborate with product and engineering from specs to ensure coverage at delivery.
• Own end-to-end quality of customer experience (signup, deposit, trade, withdrawal) across browsers/devices.
• State, with evidence, whether a release is safe to ship.
• Turn production incidents into permanent regression tests to prevent recurrence.

Skills

QA leadership

Automation expertise

TypeScript/JavaScript

CI/CD automation

API testing

Mobile testing

Reliability engineering

AI-assisted tooling awareness

Tools

Playwright

Cypress

CI/CD pipelines

API testing tools

Job description

Our Story

Sporttrade is driven by a relentless pursuit to reduce costs and increase efficiency for market participants. Founded in 2018, Sporttrade is an aligned group of market technologists applying cutting edge market microstructure to provide unmatched quality of execution for customers.

Why Bet on Sporttrade?

Joining Sporttrade means partnering with a team of colleagues who share a deep respect for each other as we disrupt a multi-billion dollar emerging industry. While other companies will come and go, Sporttrade remains focused on providing best-in-class market structure guided by putting the customer first, always.

The Role:

We are seeking a Principal QA Engineer to own and evolve quality across our trading and clearing platform, covering matching engines, APIs, and client applications. In this hands-on role, you will set the quality bar for a federally-regulated derivatives exchange, balancing rigorous risk management with safe, rapid delivery using modern tooling and AI-assisted development.

Responsibilities:

• Own our existing unit, integration, and end-to-end test suites - raise their signal, eliminate flake, and make the pipeline something engineers trust rather than retry.

• Define what "tested" means as we move from Kanban to a structured Agile process: entry and exit criteria, definition of done, and a release gate the team actually respects.

• Partner with product and engineering from specification rather than after merge, so new features arrive with coverage instead of acquiring it later.

• Own end-to-end quality of the customer experience - account signup, deposit, trade, and withdrawal - across browsers and devices.

• Be the person who can state, with evidence, whether a release is safe to ship.

• Turn production incidents into permanent regression tests, so the same defect cannot reach customers twice.

Qualifications:

• 10+ years in QA, SDET, or test engineering, including ownership of automated suites running against production systems.

• Strong automation skills in a modern stack - TypeScript/JavaScript, Playwright, Cypress or similar - running in CI rather than on a laptop.

• Experience testing APIs and event-driven or distributed systems, not only user interfaces.

• Mobile testing experience across iOS and Android.

• A track record in high-reliability environments where defects carry real consequences: fintech, payments, healthcare, infrastructure, or similar.

• Sound judgment about what deserves automation and what does not - you optimize for confidence per unit of maintenance, not for a coverage percentage.

• Performance, load, or resilience testing experience.

• Comfortable working from incomplete specifications in a fast-moving startup, and equally comfortable saying when something is not ready.

• Clear written communication. Much of quality work is making risk legible to people who did not write the code.

• Fluency with AI-assisted development tooling, and informed opinions about where it helps and where it misleads.

Bonus Points

• Demonstrated experience building a quality function from a strategic vision - setting direction, establishing standards, and growing a team around it as the organization scales.

• Experience in early-stage or fast-scaling startups, where priorities shift, specifications are thin, and the right answer is often the one you can ship this week.

• Familiarity with change control and audit evidence in a regulated environment - being able to show what was tested, and when.

Benefits

Perks

• Competitive Base Salary

• Medical, Dental, and Vision Benefits: Company pays 100% Employee premium and 50% Spouse & Dependent premiums

• Short- & Long-Term Disability; Group Term Life and AD&D; Voluntary Life and AD&D

• 401(k) Plan

• Flexible time off

• MacBooks issued to all employees

Diverse workforces create the best companies, and we at Sporttrade are committed to an inclusive culture that celebrates the uniqueness and contributions of each individual. Sporttrade is an equal opportunity employer, and does not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, religion, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.