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Kitestring Technical Services · 7 hours ago

Lead Quality Engineer - (POS Modernization)

Des Moines Metro

Full-time

Onsite

Lead/Staff

8+ years exp

Kitestring Technical Services is a growing technology consulting firm based in Northwest Arkansas, focused on delivering innovations to improve enterprise operations. They are seeking a Lead Quality Engineer to own the test strategy and automation architecture for a national convenience and fuel retailer's point-of-sale platform.

Information TechnologyIT InfrastructureRetail

Growth Opportunities

No H1B

Responsibilities

Own quality end-to-end: define the test strategy across services, data streams, and UIs (API, integration, contract, performance, reliability)

Lead a small team: mentor 2–3 QEs/SDETs; shape the backlog, write test charters, break down work, and drive sprint quality gates

Build the automation platform: implement Python-based frameworks (pytest + fixtures, Testcontainers, internal libs, CLI tools)

API & microservices testing: create robust API suites, schema validation (Avro/JSON Schema), idempotency checks, and resiliency scenarios

Event-driven validation: test Kafka (or Pulsar) pipelines—consumer lag, DLQs, retries/backoff, compaction, retention policies

Data quality: validate relational and NoSQL stores (SQL Server/Postgres + DynamoDB/MongoDB/Cassandra); ensure correctness, consistency, and performance

Performance & reliability: establish SLAs/SLOs; run load/soak/chaos scenarios (e.g., Locust/k6, fault injection); analyze bottlenecks

Edge & store scenarios: design offline-first tests, network-flap simulations, payment/EMV flows, device integrations (scanners, printers, pinpads)

Shift-left quality: integrate linting, unit/contract tests, and security checks into CI; champion quality metrics and dashboards

Compliance & security: support PCI and privacy standards; implement data masking, secrets handling, and auditability

Cross-functional collaboration: partner with developers, product, security, and store ops; coordinate with offshore teams to deliver at pace

Qualification

PythonQuality EngineeringMicroservicesAPI TestingCloud ExperienceCI/CDData SkillsSecurity AwarenessObservabilityRetail Domain ExperienceUI AutomationChaos EngineeringLeadership

Required

8+ years in Quality Engineering with strong Python automation experience; 3+ years leading QEs/SDETs or quality programs

Expertise with pytest, fixtures/parametrization, and requests/httpx; solid understanding of OOP and test design patterns

Proven hands-on with microservices and REST/gRPC testing; contract testing (e.g., Pact) and schema evolution strategies

Kafka/Pulsar testing experience: producers/consumers, DLQs, exactly/at-least-once semantics, and reprocessing strategies

Cloud & containers: experience on any major cloud (AWS/GCP/Azure) with containers and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes: deployments, resources, health checks)

CI/CD: GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, or similar; test orchestration, artifacts, parallelization, and environment provisioning with IaC

Data skills: SQL proficiency (joins, indexes, query plans) and NoSQL validation patterns; familiarity with data migration testing

Observability: logs/metrics/traces (OpenTelemetry, Prometheus/Grafana, and cloud-native APM such as Datadog/New Relic/CloudWatch/Cloud Trace) to detect regressions and flakiness

Security awareness: OAuth2/OIDC flows, secret management, and PCI touchpoints across payment paths

Retail/POS or payments domain experience is a strong plus (EMV, tokenization, settlement, offline queues)