Staff Software Engineer in Test, Product Engineering

About this role

Position Summary

Natera is at the forefront of personalized genetic testing, transforming the management of disease worldwide. As we scale our life-saving diagnostics, we are fundamentally transforming our approach to software quality and reliability.

We are seeking a highly technical, hands-on, and high-agency Principal Engineer, Software in Test (SIT) to join our Oncology Comprehensive Genomic Profiling (CGP) Product Engineering team. In this technical leadership role, you will serve as the test architect and lead developer for our product integration efforts, ensuring we deliver robust, on-time solutions across our CGP portfolio. You will act as the technical backbone for validating our most complex "Pillar" projects — operating across a sophisticated system of interconnected software products and distributed microservices. This demands deep, expert-level mastery of the system from two dimensions: working closely with architects to understand how it is built, and partnering with product managers to understand how it is used. You will translate that dual expertise into tests that reflect real-world complexity end-to-end — from order ingestion through lab execution to patient reporting — catching failure modes that only someone who truly knows the system would anticipate. You will bring an AI-native mindset as a core differentiator — leveraging advanced LLM methodologies to auto-generate test scenarios, analyze system logs, surface anomalies, and continuously optimize our CI/CD pipeline.

Crucially, while this is an individual contributor role, you will operate as a central leader — driving consensus, architectural alignment, and engineering excellence through influence rather than formal authority across Engineering, R&D, Commercial, and Clinical teams. You thrive in fluid environments, adapt quickly to change, and chart a clear path forward even amid unknowns.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Test Strategy & Integration Architecture

• Define Integration Test Architecture : Architect and deploy comprehensive, automated system integration testing frameworks that mirror Natera's complex, multi-component service environments.

• Contract-First Validation : Review and validate OpenAPI/Swagger REST specifications and Avro schemas for Kafka topics during the architecture phase to enforce strict communication protocols across microservices.

• Shift Left Testing Initiative : Collaborate with Solution Architects early in the project lifecycle to isolate and address integration discrepancies within the design phase, long before a code freeze occurs.

• AI-Native Framework Engineering : Pioneer the integration of LLMs and generative AI tools within the testing lifecycle to automate the synthesis of test logic from Level 2 (L2) specifications and behavior models (Gherkin syntax).

End-to-End Automation & Environment Governance

• Long-Arc Workflow Automation : Author and execute high-fidelity integration test scenarios that traverse 3+ discrete systems across the order to report journey.

• Resilient API & Event Testing : Minimize fragile UI automation by prioritizing asynchronous event verification (Kafka consumers/producers), webhook handlers, and database state checks.

• Staging Guardrail Enforcement: Support environment integrity by validating that intermediate component builds comply with version synchronization matrices (e.g., LIMS and PIPE dependency trees) prior to deployment.

• AI-Driven Root Cause Analysis : Develop and embed log-scraping AI agents into the CI/CD pipeline to analyze multi-service exceptions, rapidly isolating fault vectors within complex distributed networks.

Technical Leadership & Cross-Functional Synergy

• Cross-Functional Leadership via Influence : Lead and align cross-functional engineering pods, Solution Architects, and Digital Product Managers toward shared quality goals. You will drive architectural consensus and testing process adherence through technical credibility, persuasion, and partnership rather than formal reporting lines.

• Technical Mentorship : Train and mentor Senior Software Quality Engineers (SQEs) and Software Engineers in Test across distributed scrum pods, championing systems thinking and advanced software automation practices.

• Chaos Engineering & Resiliency Experiments : Introduce deliberate network latencies, container failures, and boundary conditions to rigorously validate the system's fail-soft and self-healing behaviors.

Qualifications

• Professional Experience : 12+ years of active software development or test automation engineering experience, with at least 5 years in a senior or lead capacity, and a proven history of deploying automation structures for enterprise-grade distributed systems.

• Technical Language Fluency : Expert programming capabilities in backend languages such as Java, Python, or Go, with hands-on experience in modern test automation frameworks including Playwright, and a solid grasp of containerized environments (Docker, Kubernetes).

• Distributed Architecture Expertise : Hands-on technical mastery verifying microservices, REST/gRPC endpoints, and event-driven data hubs utilizing Apache Kafka or AWS SQS/SNS.

• Cloud Native Proficiency: Comprehensive experience utilizing AWS cloud native services (S3, Lambdas, CloudWatch) to track and mock backend infrastructure.

• Regulated Domain Background : Prior exposure to highly structured, quality-critical engineering contexts (HealthTech, MedTech, or FinTech). Understanding of FDA design controls, IEC 62304, or HIPAA standards is highly advantageous.

• Educational Background : Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a strictly quantitative discipline.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• High Agency & Technical Initiative : You are a natural builder who thrives in fluid, fast-moving environments. Rather than waiting for predefined test specifications, you inspect code, audit requirements, chart a path forward amid unknowns,

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