Senior quality engineer Jobs in Alexandria, VA

As a Senior Software Quality Engineer, you will be a key architect of quality for Amtrak's mission-critical Transportation platform, ensuring the reliability of a high-traffic, distributed microservices ecosystem. Based in Washington, DC, this role focuses on the complex "plumbing" of railway operations-from equipment lifecycles and yard scheduling to real-time event processing. You will move beyond simple UI testing to design sophisticated strategies for state-based systems, event-driven workflows (Kafka), and data-intensive integrations, ensuring that the systems moving America remain resilient, idempotent, and highly performant.

Essential Responsibilities

• Strategy & Architecture: Design and execute comprehensive, end-to-end test strategies for complex, state-heavy distributed systems.
• Automation Development: Build and maintain scalable automated frameworks for both UI and API layers using tools such as Playwright, Selenium, REST-assured, or Karate.
• Backend & Middleware Validation: Rigorously test REST APIs, microservices integration points, and asynchronous, message-based workflows (Kafka).
• Data Integrity: Perform deep-level database validations (SQL/NoSQL) to ensure referential consistency and correct state transitions across the platform.
• Resiliency & Performance: Develop and execute tests for failure handling, retries, and system idempotency; conduct load testing to ensure stability during peak operations.
• CI/CD Integration: Embed automation suites directly into DevOps pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub, or Bitbucket) to support continuous delivery.
• Observability: Analyze system behavior and troubleshoot issues using logs and monitoring tools like CloudWatch, AppDynamics, or ELK/EFK stacks.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Partner with Architects and Product Owners to define quality gates and influence system design from a testability perspective.

Minimum Qualifications

• Education/Experience: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science (or related field) OR 7+ years of relevant experience in software quality engineering.
• Automation Expertise: 5+ years of experience in enterprise-level manual and automated testing, with a focus on UI and API layers.
• Technical Stack: High proficiency in Java and TypeScript for automation scripting.
• Architectural Knowledge: Proven experience testing microservices-based architectures and distributed systems.
• Data Skills: Advanced SQL skills with the ability to validate complex relational and NoSQL database structures.
• Agile Mindset: Deep experience working within Agile/Scrum frameworks and a proactive approach to problem-solving.

Preferred Qualifications

• Industry Context: Experience with high-reliability operational systems (e.g., Logistics, Aerospace, Fintech, or Transportation).
• Event-Driven Systems: Hands-on experience validating Kafka or similar message-broker technologies.
• Performance Engineering: Familiarity with JMeter or similar performance and stress-testing tools.
• Cloud & Legacy Integration: Experience with AWS environments and the ability to validate integrations between modern microservices and legacy mainframe (3270/batch) systems.

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