Software Guidance & Assistance, Inc., (SGA), is searching for a Sr SDET/QA Architect for a right to hire assignment with one of our premier Financial Services clients in Mississauga, ON .
Responsibilities :
Seeking a visionary and hands-on Senior Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) / Quality Engineering Architect to define, champion, and drive the global quality engineering strategy across multi-tier, high-throughput trading platforms.
In this role, you will lead the technical vision for automated quality gates, design scalable test automation frameworks from scratch, integrate cutting-edge AI-driven testing tooling, and establish robust in-sprint automation and performance engineering practices across global distributed teams. Acting as both a principal architect and a hands-on technical mentor, you will partner closely with Development, Architecture, Product Management, and Business stakeholders to ensure resiliency, low latency, and zero-defect delivery across complex enterprise ecosystems.
- Architectural Strategy & Framework Engineering
- Enterprise Test Architecture: Design, build, and maintain next-generation, cloud-native test automation frameworks from scratch using Core Java, BDD/TDD principles, and modern architectural design patterns.
- In-Sprint Automation Acceleration: Spearhead shift-left quality practices, enabling engineering squads to achieve true in-sprint test automation for UI, microservices, and distributed streaming/messaging pipelines.
- AI & Intelligent Testing Integration: Evaluate, integrate, and scale AI/ML-assisted testing solutions (e.g., generative AI for synthetic test data generation, predictive quality gates, self-healing test automation, and intelligent test impact analysis).
- Multi-Tier & Service-Level Automation: Architect robust API and microservice testing frameworks (REST, gRPC, WebSockets, Kafka/messaging queues) using Rest Assured, Mocking frameworks, and contract testing (Pact).
- Data Architecture & Validation: Architect comprehensive data validation frameworks capable of validating complex financial data pipelines, data consistency, and transactional integrity across relational (Oracle/PostgreSQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB) databases.
- Performance Engineering & Non-Functional Architecture
- End-to-End Performance Strategy: Formulate and execute non-functional testing strategies encompassing load, stress, spike, endurance, and latency benchmarking using JMeter, Gatling, or distributed cloud performance engines.
- Observability & Bottleneck Identification: Analyze system bottlenecks across CPU, memory, database query execution, network latency, and JVM performance to provide actionable optimization recommendations to core engineering teams.
- Resilience & Chaos Engineering: Implement resilience, failover, and high-availability testing paradigms across cloud and containerized environments.
- Continuous Delivery & Quality Gates
- Cloud & CI/CD Pipeline Architecture: Deeply embed automated quality gates into enterprise CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, Bitbucket Pipelines, Tekton, GitHub Actions, Harness) across containerized environments (Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift).
- Continuous Quality Analytics: Define and instrument automated metrics and dashboards reflecting code quality, test coverage, defect leakage, MTTR, and test execution efficiency.
- Technical Leadership & Global Governance
- Global Team Technical Leadership: Provide technical direction and architectural governance to SDETs and QE engineers globally (bridging North America and APAC teams).
- Standards & Best Practices: Establish enterprise-wide quality benchmarks, coding standards for test repositories, code review policies, and test artifact reusability guidelines.
- Stakeholder Alignment: Collaborate with Global Product Owners, Business Analysts, Enterprise Architects, and Development Leads for comprehensive test planning, release coordination, and risk assessment.
Required Skills :
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or equivalent practical experience.
- 8-12+ years of progressive experience in software development and quality engineering, with at least 3+ years in a Lead SDET, Principal SDET, or QA Architect capacity.
- Domain Background: Proven track record in Financial Services, Capital Markets, FinTech, or low-latency Trading Platforms with an understanding of trading workflows, order management, and financial data flows.
- Core Programming & Design: Expert-level proficiency in Core Java (collections, multithreading, concurrency, OOP design patterns).
- Framework Design: Demonstrated track record of building scalable, maintainable test frameworks from the ground up (Custom hybrid frameworks, Cucumber BDD, TestNG/JUnit).
- API & Service Testing: Deep expertise in RESTful API testing, service virtualization, contract testing, and tools such as Rest Assured, Postman/Newman, and WireMock.
- UI Automation: Extensive hands-on experience in Selenium WebDriver, Playwright, or Cypress with design patterns like Page Object Model (POM) and Screenplay pattern.
- Performance Testing & Engineering: Solid hands-on background in JMeter, performance profiling, load injection architecture, and identifying system capacity limits.
- Database & Data Validation: Strong query formulation and automated verification capabilities across SQL (Oracle, PostgreSQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB).
- CI/CD & DevOps: Strong hands-on experience integrating automated suites into CI/CD pipelines with Git, Bitbucket, Jenkins/Tekton/Harness, and containerization tools (Docker, Kubernetes).
- AI Tooling & Innovation: Practical exposure to or active implementation of AI-assisted testing tools, LLM-driven test case generation, and automated self-healing scripts.
- Behavioral Competencies & Leadership Attributes
- Strategic Vision with Hands-on Execution: Ability to define long-term architectural roadmaps while remaining technically agile and capable of diving into framework code.
- Influence & Cross-Functional Collaboration: Proven ability to build consensus across distributed engineering teams, bridging regional and time-zone differences.
- Culture of Innovation: Proactive mindset in evaluating emerging technologies, GenAI testing tools, and industry trends to keep the QA organization at peak efficiency.
- Quality Advocacy & Ownership: High sense of accountability for product reliability, stability, and client experience in mission-critical environments.
- Mentorship & Coaching: Passion for upskilling SDETs and manual QA engineers into advanced automation practitioners.
Preferred Skills :
- Certifications (Advantageous):
- Certified Software Test Architect / ISTQB Advanced Level (Test Automation Engineer / Technical Test Analyst).
- AWS / Google Cloud Platform Cloud Architecture or Developer Certifications.
- Java SE Professional Developer Certification.
- Prior background as a full-time Software Development Engineer (Java/Spring Boot).
- Experience with message brokers and event-driven architectures (Apache Kafka, RabbitMQ, IBM MQ).
- Familiarity with Contract Testing (Pact framework) and Service Mesh architectures.
- Experience with Cloud native platforms (AWS, Google Cloud Platform, or OpenShift/Kubernetes).
- Familiarity with Security testing fundamentals (DAST/SAST integration into pipelines).
By applying for a job with SGA, you agree to allow SGA to process your application for this and future opportunities in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Also, to ensure timely processing, you agree to be contacted by our AI recruiter via email, text, or phone. Message frequency varies and data rates may apply, but you can reply STOP to any SMS message to opt-out of texts and may contact SGA at to opt-out of AI communications. The choice not to engage with AI will not adversely impact your consideration for placement. AI is not used to make any hiring determinations.
SGA is a technology and resource solutions provider driven to stand out. We are a women-owned business. Our mission: to solve big IT problems with a more personal, boutique approach. Each year, we match consultants like you to more than 1,000 engagements. When we say let's work better together, we mean it. You'll join a diverse team built on these core values: customer service, employee development, and quality and integrity in everything we do. Be yourself, love what you do and find your passion at work. Please find us at .
SGA is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of Race, Color, Sex, Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Religion, National Origin, Disability, Veteran Status, Age, Marital Status, Pregnancy, Genetic Information, or Other Legally Protected Status. We are committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, and our services, programs, and activities. Please visit our company to request an accommodation or assistance regarding our policy.
