QA Test Engineer (Cloud Migration Validation, Failure Triage & Root-Cause Analysis)

TEST ENGINEER

for

Next Pathway - The Automated Cloud Migration Company

Cloud Migration Validation, Failure Triage & Root-Cause Analysis

The Role. Next Pathway is looking for technically strong, highly analytical Test Engineers who can investigate failures across complex cloud migration and data environments. This is not a traditional QA role: the engineer is expected to read logs, interrogate data, reproduce issues, isolate root causes, and determine whether a failure originates in code, data, configuration, environment, orchestration, permissions, or the test framework itself.

Location. Toronto

Key Responsibilities

• Execute, monitor, and assess automated and manual testing for enterprise cloud migration and modernization workloads.
• Use Next Pathway’s TESTER software to validate translated code, data integrity, execution results, and production readiness across source and target environments.
• Analyze test results, application logs, database logs, ETL/orchestration logs, audit logs, stack traces, and execution errors to triage failures and isolate root causes.
• Differentiate failures caused by translated-code defects, source or target data issues, environment instability, configuration, permissions, dependencies, orchestration, or test setup.
• Write advanced SQL to validate transformations, reconcile source-to-target results, investigate row-count and aggregate differences, identify nulls/duplicates, and trace data-quality issues.
• Use Python to parse logs, analyze datasets, automate investigations, build lightweight test utilities, and accelerate recurring diagnostic tasks.
• Work with SHIFT outputs and migration engineering teams to reproduce and investigate translated-code failures and support rapid defect resolution.
• Document defects with clear evidence, root-cause findings, ownership, impact, and recommended next actions; identify recurring patterns and improve test coverage and automation.

Core Technical Skills

• Advanced SQL: complex joins, aggregations, CTEs, window functions, data reconciliation, schema/data-type analysis, and query-based troubleshooting.
• Python: scripting, data manipulation, log parsing, automation, diagnostics, and test utility development.
• Log & failure analysis: ability to navigate large volumes of technical logs, follow execution paths, correlate events, and identify the true failure point.
• Data validation & reconciliation: source-to-target comparison, transformation validation, row counts, aggregates, schema checks, business-rule validation, and discrepancy analysis.
• Databases & data pipelines: solid understanding of tables, views, stored procedures, schemas, constraints, transactions, ETL/ELT pipelines, dependencies, and scheduling/orchestration.
• Cloud data platforms: experience with Snowflake strongly preferred; familiarity with Databricks and major cloud platforms is an asset.
• Engineering toolchain: working knowledge of Git/GitHub, CI/CD pipelines, Linux/Unix command-line tools, APIs/JSON, and defect-management systems.
• Performance troubleshooting: ability to recognize query, resource, timeout, dependency, and scalability issues that affect test execution.

What We Look For

• Exceptional analytical, troubleshooting, and root-cause analysis skills; able to work methodically through ambiguous failures.
• Systems thinking: understands that a failed test may originate anywhere across code, data, infrastructure, orchestration, configuration, permissions, or TESTER - and can determine which layer owns the issue.
• Technical curiosity and independence: willing to dig into the evidence rather than simply escalate a failure.
• Clear communication: can explain technical findings concisely to developers, data engineers, delivery teams, and client stakeholders.
• Background may be in test engineering, data engineering, software engineering, or another technical discipline; diagnostic capability matters more than a traditional QA title.

What Success Looks Like

An average tester reports: “The test failed.” A strong Next Pathway Test Engineer explains why it failed, proves where the problem originated, identifies the likely owner, and provides the evidence needed to resolve it quickly.