Senior QA Engineer

The Senior QA Engineer makes sure every release is functionally correct, secure, performant and audit-ready before it reaches clients, regulators or partners. This is a quality engineering role, not a manual testing role: the jobholder designs test strategy, builds and maintains automation frameworks, and embeds quality gates into the delivery pipeline.

Our systems move client money, hold personal and financial data, and connect to banks, payment processors, custodians, exchanges and regulators. A defect can mean financial loss, a data protection breach, a failed regulatory return or reputational damage. The jobholder treats quality as a risk discipline, aligned with expectations from regulators such as the CBN and SEC, the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, and industry standards such as PCI DSS and ISO/IEC 27001 where applicable.

The jobholder also leads the responsible adoption of AI-assisted testing, using AI to accelerate test design, generation and maintenance while keeping people accountable for coverage and outcomes.

Responsibilities

1. Quality strategy and test architecture

• Define and own risk-based test strategies and test plans for products, releases and major change programmes.
• Apply the test pyramid and shift-left practices so most defects are caught at unit, contract and API level, not in UAT.
• Take part in backlog refinement and design reviews; turn business rules into testable acceptance criteria (BDD/Gherkin where useful).
• Set and track entry and exit criteria, release readiness and quality sign-off for production deployments.
• Maintain traceability from requirements and regulatory obligations to test cases and evidence.

2. Test automation engineering

• Design, build and maintain scalable, maintainable automation frameworks for web, mobile and API testing.
• Write clean, reviewed, version-controlled test code using sound design patterns (Page Object, Screenplay, data builders).
• Build regression suites that run reliably in CI with low flakiness, parallel execution and clear reporting.
• Automate test data creation, environment setup and teardown; use mocks, stubs and service virtualisation for unavailable third parties.
• Continuously measure and improve automation coverage, execution time and stability.

3. API, integration and contract testing

• Test REST, GraphQL, SOAP and event-driven interfaces for functionality, schema, error handling, idempotency and versioning.
• Validate integrations with banks, payment gateways, NIBSS rails, card schemes, custodians, exchanges, KYC/BVN providers and fintech partners.
• Implement consumer-driven contract testing between internal services and external partners.
• Verify data integrity end to end, including reconciliation, settlement, fees, interest, NAV and unit pricing calculations where relevant.

4. Performance, load and resilience testing

• Plan and run load, stress, spike, soak and scalability tests against agreed non-functional requirements and SLAs.
• Model realistic workloads for peak events such as month-end, salary days, IPOs, offer periods and market volatility.
• Analyse results with engineering using APM and observability tools; identify bottlenecks in code, database, network and infrastructure.
• Support resilience and chaos testing, failover, and disaster recovery and business continuity test exercises.

5. Security testing

• Embed security testing in the pipeline: SAST, DAST, dependency (SCA) and container scanning, and secrets detection.
• Test against the OWASP Top 10, OWASP API Security Top 10 and OWASP MASVS for mobile.
• Validate authentication, authorisation, session management, MFA, encryption in transit and at rest, and data masking.
• Work with Information Security and external penetration testers to triage findings and verify remediation.
• Test privacy controls such as consent, data minimisation and data subject rights in line with the NDPA.

6. AI-assisted testing

• Use AI tools to accelerate test case design, test data generation, script authoring, self-healing locators and defect triage.
• Evaluate and introduce AI-powered testing tools with clear measures of value, accuracy and cost.
• Set guardrails for AI use in QA: human review of generated tests, no confidential or client data in unapproved tools, and an audit trail of outputs.
• Where products include AI or ML features (chatbots, recommendations, fraud models), design tests for accuracy, bias, robustness, hallucination and prompt injection.

7. CI/CD and DevOps quality

• Integrate automated tests and quality gates into CI/CD pipelines (build, deploy, smoke, regression, security, performance).
• Work with DevOps to keep test environments stable, production-like and available on demand (containers, infrastructure as code).
• Support progressive delivery practices such as feature flags, canary and blue-green releases, and post-deployment verification.
• Monitor production quality signals and feed incidents back into test coverage.

8. Web and mobile application quality

• Test web applications across browsers and devices, and native and hybrid mobile apps on iOS and Android.
• Cover functional, usability, accessibility (WCAG 2.2), localisation, offline and low-bandwidth behaviour common in our markets.
• Manage real-device and cloud device lab coverage based on actual customer device and OS data.
• Validate app store release readiness, upgrade paths and backward compatibility.

9. Data, database and reporting quality

• Write SQL to validate data across databases, data warehouses and ETL pipelines.
• Test regulatory and management reports for accuracy, completeness and timeliness.
• Verify data migration during platform changes and system upgrades.

10. Governance, compliance and audit readiness

• Keep test evidence, defect records and sign-offs that satisfy internal audit, external audit and regulatory review.
• Follow change management, segregation of duties and production access controls.
• Report quality metrics and release risk clearly to product, technology and risk stakeholders.

11. Leadership and capability building

• Mentor QA engineers and coach developers on testability, unit testing and automation.
• Lead defect triage and root cause analysis; drive fixes in process, not only in code.
• Champion a whole-team quality culture and contribute to QA standards, playbooks and tool selection.
• Manage the work of vendor or outsourced testing partners where engaged.

Requirements

Qualifications and Experience

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5 to 8 years in software testing and quality engineering, with at least 3 years building and owning test automation in production delivery.
• Proven experience testing in financial services, fintech, banking, payments, capital markets, insurance or investment management.
• Strong programming skills in at least one of Java, TypeScript/JavaScript, Python or C#, including code review and Git workflows.
• Hands-on experience designing automation frameworks from scratch, not only extending existing ones.
• Solid experience in API testing and automation, including authentication flows (OAuth 2.0, JWT, mTLS).
• Practical experience planning, executing and analysing performance and load tests.
• Working knowledge of application security testing and the OWASP Top 10.
• Experience integrating tests into CI/CD pipelines and working in Agile/Scrum teams.
• Strong SQL skills and experience validating data across relational databases.
• Practical use of AI-assisted tools in software testing or development, with awareness of their limits and risks.
• Clear written and verbal communication, including reporting risk to non-technical and senior stakeholders.

Preferred

• ISTQB Advanced Level (Test Analyst, Technical Test Analyst or Test Automation Engineer), or ISTQB Certified Tester AI Testing (CT-AI).
• Security credentials such as CompTIA Security+, CEH, eWPT or OSCP, or demonstrated bug bounty or penetration testing work.
• Cloud certification (AWS, Azure or GCP associate level) or Certified Kubernetes Application Developer.
• Experience with core banking, investment management, brokerage, trustee, pension or wallet platforms.
• Familiarity with Nigerian payment infrastructure (NIBSS NIP, NQR, BVN/NIN verification) and open banking standards.
• Exposure to regulatory frameworks relevant to technology risk: CBN IT standards and cybersecurity guidance, SEC rules, NDPA 2023, PCI DSS, ISO/IEC 27001, ISO 22301.
• Experience testing event streaming and messaging (Kafka, RabbitMQ) and microservices architectures.
• Experience with chaos engineering tools such as Gremlin or LitmusChaos.
• Contribution to open-source testing projects, technical blogs or community talks.

Behavioural Competencies

• Risk-Based Judgement
• Prioritises testing based on financial, regulatory, and customer impact.
• Clearly explains testing gaps and the rationale for areas not tested.
• Ownership and Integrity
• Maintains quality standards under delivery pressure.
• Escalates release risks early, transparently, and honestly.
• Analytical Problem Solving
• Identifies root causes across application code, data, infrastructure, and third-party systems.
• Collaboration and Influence
• Works effectively with developers, product owners, and security teams.
• Influences technical and delivery decisions without relying on formal authority.
• Clear Communication
• Produces precise defect reports and communicates quality status, risks, and findings to executives in clear, non-technical language.
• Continuous Learning
• Keeps up with emerging tools, AI capabilities, and security threats.
• Adopts new approaches based on demonstrable value and evidence.
• Coaching Mindset
• Improves testing capabilities across the entire engineering team, rather than limiting quality ownership to the QA function.
• Attention to Detail
• Identifies edge cases involving calculations, rounding, time zones, currencies, and boundary values.