Lead Software Engineer - Test Automation Platform

at  Vertex Inc

Job Description:
As a Lead Software Engineer on the Productivity Engineering team, you will be responsible for the development of DevOps and test automation including environment creation of products and services, end-to-end solutions test automation that exercises critical customer paths, as well as services and workflows to run within pipelines.
What is the Vertex Productivity Engineering team? Our goal is to unleash innovation and bring operational excellence to software development with insights, tools, and infrastructure that enables frictionless delivery of features with high bars for quality, security, and reliability.
On this agile team focused on continuous improvement, you’ll connect the pathway for applications to be tested in a modern, scalable model that reduces cycle times and increases innovation. With a comprehensive understanding of software development, you’ll contribute to a common platform, but also have the knowledge of systems and testing for this to fit into the SDLC of cloud service development.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES:

• (MUST HAVE) CI/CD pipeline experience with cloud-centric applications across a variety of stacks
• (MUST HAVE) Experience designing, developing, executing, and triaging end-to-end test automation against cloud-based products
• (MUST HAVE) Development of applications/services in a cloud environment.
• (MUST HAVE) Experience with AWS
• Experience with Kubernetes and CNCF technologies, docker
• Development of DevOps tooling used for production code, including both creation of new services as well as integration and operation of 3rd party.
• Deep understanding of various software testing approaches, including unit, component, system, end-to-end, contract, interoperability, Behavior-Driven Development (BDD), and Test-Driven Development (TDD)
• Must be able to quickly acquire product knowledge, read business scenarios, and transform those into test automation.
• Data-driven with working history of measuring test automation efficacy and efficiency.
• Infrastructure-as-code development including Terraform and Ansible
• Ability to code applications/services in multiple languages with priority of Java, .NET, Python, Go
• Collaborate with teams and individuals across the organization to understand their challenges, discuss solutions, and support their use of tooling
• Practitioner of agile practices and play lead roles such as Scrum Master or Product Owner
• Display empathy towards engineers and their friction, work with them to develop common solution.
• Must possess strong interpersonal, organizational, presentation and facilitation skills.
• Must be results oriented and customer focused.
• Agile role certifications a plus, including value stream mapping practices to identify and eliminate waste in software delivery processes

EDUCATION AND TRAINING:

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, or related field; or equivalent combination of education/experience. Master’s degree is a plus.
• 10 years or more experience of software development with 5 or more in a lead or architect type role

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Coordinate establishment of solutions level test automation, focused on testing product portfolio of leading SaaS indirect tax software. This includes the development, execution, and triage of test automation to cover critical customer paths
• Development of shared deployment pipeline services and automation for delivery of cloud applications through multiple environments, on multiple stacks include cloud-native Kubernetes as well as AWS EC2 instances
• Develop services and tools to handle the scheduling and orchestration of automated test suites. Internal tools require full-stack development and a DevOps “you build it, you own it” continuous model.
• Work with all product teams that are globally distributed to capture requirements for centralized platform capabilities. Design of common solutions to meet engineering needs that provide value to multiple teams.
• Create cloud and application environment automation (infrastructure-as-code)
• Data-driven analysis and monitoring for triage of failures of services/applications, pipelines, and tests
• Write and structure documentation, representing architectures and user flows visually
• Lead team in development of services and tools. Provide guidance on code quality and DevOps routines for the development and release of these services and tools.
• Identify inefficiencies in the flow of value through the DevOps pipeline and design improvements to accelerate and optimize

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES:

• N/A
  Other Qualifications

The Winning Way behaviors that all Vertex employees need in order to meet the expectations of each other, our customers, and our partners.

• Communicate with Clarity - Be clear, concise and actionable. Be relentlessly constructive. Seek and provide meaningful feedback.
• Act with Urgency - Adopt an agile mentality - frequent iterations, improved speed, resilience. 80/20 rule – better is the enemy of done. Don’t spend hours when minutes are enough.
• Work with Purpose - Exhibit a “We Can” mindset. Results outweigh effort. Everyone understands how their role contributes. Set aside personal objectives for team results.
• Drive to Decision - Cut the swirl with defined deadlines and decision points. Be clear on individual accountability and decision authority. Guided by a commitment to and accountability for customer outcomes.
• Own the Outcome - Defined milestones, commitments and intended results. Assess your work in context, if you’re unsure, ask. Demonstrate unwavering support for decisions.

Comments
The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by individuals in this position. Other functions may be assigned, and management retains the right to add or change the duties at any time