Job title: Senior Software Development Engineer in Test
Reports to: Senior Manager, Engineering
Department: Software Development
Location: Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
About Priority Commerce:
Priority Commerce is a leading financial technology company on a mission to deliver a personalized, easy-to-adopt financial toolset that accelerates cash flow and optimizes working capital for businesses. Our vision is to eliminate the barriers to unlocking revenue - empowering businesses to grow faster and operate smarter.
We achieve this through the Priority Commerce Engine, an innovative platform that combines payables, acquiring, and banking and treasury solutions. This unified approach allows businesses to streamline financial operations, reduce unnecessary costs, and uncover new revenue opportunities.
At Priority Commerce, we're driven by results. We expect our people to be known for results - bringing expertise, momentum, and relentless focus to every challenge, helping our clients and each other thrive.
About the Role:
Senior Software Development Engineers in Test operate as technical leaders within a team, owning validation strategy and system quality for complex systems.
A workstream is a product-aligned engineering organization responsible for delivering a cohesive set of customer and business capabilities. Within a workstream, domains are composed of multiple value lanes (teams), each with its own charter and outcomes. Senior Software Development Engineers in Test operate within a value lane, leading validation efforts for complex systems and workflows while influencing practices that improve system quality across the broader domain.
This role is responsible for designing and driving comprehensive validation strategies for team-owned systems, ensuring systems behave correctly and reliably under real-world conditions, and elevating testing practices within the team. You will collaborate closely with software engineers, product managers, and product designers to ensure complex workflows are validated effectively and meet high standards for correctness, performance, and resilience.
Senior Software Development Engineers in Test demonstrate strong ownership and technical leadership within the team, with a deep understanding of how system behavior, reliability, and performance impact customer experience and business outcomes within a workstream.
Responsibilities:
- Designs and implements comprehensive automated validation strategies for team-owned systems, covering APIs, services, and critical workflows
- Writes clean, scalable, and maintainable test automation code and improves existing frameworks where needed
- Ensures automated validation is fully integrated into CI/CD pipelines to provide fast, reliable feedback
- Owns validation for complex features and workflows, including edge cases, failure scenarios, and performance considerations
- Ensures systems behave predictably under real-world conditions, including peak load and degraded scenarios
- Leads debugging and root cause analysis of complex defects and system issues
- Uses logs, metrics, and traces to deeply understand system behavior and identify reliability gaps
- Drives improvements in system testability by influencing design decisions and collaborating closely with software engineers
- Defines validation strategies that balance coverage, execution speed, and maintainability
- Partners with product managers and product designers to ensure validation aligns with customer workflows and product requirements
- Ensures systems meet expectations for correctness, reliability, performance, and user experience prior to release
- Improves testing practices, automation frameworks, and validation workflows within the team
- Mentors engineers on testing strategies, debugging approaches, and system validation
- Leverages AI-assisted engineering tools to improve validation efficiency, defect detection, and system understanding
- Continuously improves system knowledge, validation approaches, and engineering practices
What Success Looks Like:
- Owns and delivers comprehensive validation for team-owned systems and critical workflows
- Author and maintain test plans, test cases, and automated suites (UI, API, regression).
- Improves system reliability by identifying and addressing defects before they reach production
- Demonstrates strong technical leadership within the team, particularly in validation and system quality
- Elevates testing practices, automation quality, and validation strategies within the team
- Reduces defects, improves system stability, and increases confidence in releases
- Collaborates effectively with engineers and product partners to ensure high-quality outcomes
- Proactively identify potential reliability and security issues prior to release
- Demonstrates a deep understanding of how system behavior impacts customer experience and business outcomes
Candidate Requirements:
Required:
Test Automation & Validation
- Deep experience with automated testing (unit, integration, API, and end-to-end testing)
- Experience designing and maintaining automated testing frameworks (e.g., Playwright, Typescript)
- Strong understanding of CI/CD pipelines and automated validation workflows
Systems & Architecture
- Solid understanding of web application architecture, RESTful APIs, and backend services
- Experience working with distributed systems or service-oriented architectures
- Experience validating complex distributed systems under load and failure scenarios
Debugging, Observability & Reliability
- Strong debugging and root cause analysis skills across complex systems
- Experience working with logs, metrics, and traces to understand system behavior
- Experience improving system observability and testability
- Experience with performance testing, reliability testing, or chaos testing
Technical Judgment & Leadership
- Proven ability to identify quality risks, evaluate trade-offs, and guide teams toward effective validation strategies
- Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers and improve testing practices across a team
- Ability to lead technical efforts within a team and influence engineering decisions
- Strong collaboration and communication skills
- Act as the escalation point for production quality issues
- Embed quality throughout the SDLC in partnership with Product, Engineering, Architecture, Platform, SRE, DevOps, and Data teams
Data & Measurement
- Familiarity with defining system KPIs and validation metrics
- Working knowledge of SQL and relational databases
- Balance hands-on testing and automation with technical leadership to drive reliability, reduce risk, and accelerate delivery without sacrificing performance.
Modern Engineering Practices (AI & Automation)
- Experience leveraging AI-assisted tools to improve testing, debugging, and engineering productivity
- Experience working with AI-enabled systems or workflows and understanding how to validate them effectively
Tech Stack
- The primary technology stack for the Global Markets team includes: JavaScript, Node.js, C#, .NET, React and Angular. Experience in one to many of these areas is required.
- Work in Agile/Scrum; proficient with Jira, Confluence, and TestRail
Preferred:
- Experience in fintech, payments, lending, or other regulated financial systems
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
- Advanced degree (e.g., Master’s) in a relevant technical discipline
Typical Experience & Leveling Context:
Senior Software Development Engineers in Test typically have approximately 5–8 years of experience, leading validation strategies and improving system quality within a team.
At this level, the focus is on designing comprehensive testing approaches, improving system reliability, and guiding testing practices through technical leadership and mentorship.
Leveling is based on demonstrated scope, ownership, influence, and impact, not tenure alone. Engineers may progress at different rates depending on the complexity of systems validated and contributions to team and domain outcomes.
Work Environment & Culture:
We believe that performance and experience go hand in hand - an exceptional employee experience is earned through contribution. We are a results-driven team, grounded in our core values: ownership, authenticity, service, trust, innovation, and camaraderie.
Our culture is built for those who want to make an impact. We challenge each other to grow, celebrate progress, and support one another through shared goals and real connection. Whether you're building technology, serving clients, or supporting internal teams, you’ll be part of a company that empowers you to perform at your best and be known for results.
Compensation and Benefits:
Compensation range: $113K-$139K CAD
We invest in the whole employee - personally and professionally. Our benefits package is designed to support your well-being, growth, and success - both inside and outside of work.
Financial Wellness
- Bonus programs
- Financial wellness resources and employee discount programs
Health & Well-being
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage
- Mental health support for employees and dependents through Lyra Health
- Family planning and women’s health benefits through Carrot
- Gym membership reimbursement and virtual wellness programs (including yoga)
Time Off
- 3 weeks PTO to start, with unlimited PTO after year one
Growth & Development
- Education expense reimbursement
- Leadership development programs
- Certified Payments Professional (CPP) certification support
We believe great performance starts with feeling supported - and we’ve built our benefits with that in mind.
Traditional Physical Requirements:
- Requires prolonged sitting, standing, bending, stooping and stretching.
- Requires the ability to lift 10 pounds.
- Requires eye-hand coordination, manual dexterity and a normal range of hearing and vision (with or without correction).
Join our team at Priority Commerce and be part of a dynamic and innovative company that is transforming the financial technology landscape. Together, we can shape the future of payments and banking solutions while providing unmatched value to our clients.
