Middle SDET — Data Platform / Query Engine

Job description

Level: Middle Engagement: Long-term contract Location: Europe (EU / EEA / UK), remote Working hours: EU business hours, shifted 2–3 hours later to ensure daily overlap with US West Coast (PST/PDT) mornings

ABOUT THE CLIENT

Our client is a leading enterprise data platform company building an open, high-performance data lakehouse for AI and analytical workloads. The platform combines an intelligent SQL query engine, an AI-ready semantic layer, and an open catalog built on Apache Iceberg — enabling Fortune 500 companies across finance, energy, manufacturing, and logistics to unify, query, and govern data at massive scale across cloud and on-premise sources.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We are looking for a Middle-level SDET to design and maintain automated tests for a large-scale distributed data platform. You will validate the correctness, performance, and reliability of the query engine, connectivity layer, and backend services across all major clouds.

This is a data-heavy, backend-focused role. We are not looking for web/UI QA engineers — the work centers on validating distributed query execution, data correctness at scale, connectivity drivers, and backend microservices.

RESPONSIBILITIES

- Develop and maintain automated tests in Python / pytest for backend services, REST APIs, and distributed data components.

- Write end-to-end, integration, and regression tests covering SQL query execution, data correctness, and platform APIs.

- Support performance and load testing with JMeter, including workloads over JDBC / ODBC / Arrow Flight drivers.

- Validate data-intensive scenarios — query plans, result correctness across data sources, metadata consistency, and behavior under concurrency.

- Contribute to CI/CD test pipelines in Jenkins — configure, maintain, and troubleshoot.

- Provision and manage test environments in Kubernetes (GKE / EKS / AKS) across GCP, AWS, and Azure using Docker.

- Investigate failures across the stack — query engine, distributed services, drivers, infrastructure — and drive them to resolution with engineering.

- Collaborate with US-based developers on testability and quality gates.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

- Education: B. S. or M. S. in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.

- Programming: Strong proficiency in Python, including pytest, with a solid grasp of OOP and software design principles.

- SQL & Data: Strong SQL skills and solid understanding of how relational and analytical data systems work.

- Data-intensive testing experience: Hands-on experience testing data-intensive systems — query engines, ETL/ELT pipelines, streaming platforms, or analytical databases. Candidates with only web/UI QA backgrounds are not a fit.

- Testing experience: 3+ years in backend/system test automation or SDET roles.

- CI/CD & DevOps basics: Practical experience with Jenkins pipelines and deploying/maintaining test environments.

- Containers: Working knowledge of Docker and basic Kubernetes (running workloads, debugging pods, kubectl fluency).

- Cloud: Comfortable operating in at least one major cloud ( GCP, AWS, or Azure ).

- Version Control: Confident with Git / GitHub workflows.

- English: Upper-Intermediate or higher ( B2+ ) — daily written and verbal communication with a US-based engineering team.

- Availability: Able to work EU hours with a 2–3 hour shift toward US West Coast time to ensure daily overlap with the client team.

DESIRED SKILLS

- Experience testing REST APIs and backend microservices at scale.

- Familiarity with distributed computing frameworks (e.g., Apache Spark, Kafka) and MPP SQL query engines (e.g., Presto, Trino, or similar).

- Understanding of modern data lakehouse concepts, open table formats ( Apache Iceberg ), and data warehousing.

- Experience with data connectivity drivers: JDBC, ODBC, Arrow Flight.

- Performance testing with JMeter or comparable load-testing tools.

- Kubernetes on managed services ( GKE / EKS / AKS ) and multi-cloud exposure.

- IaC tools such as Terraform.

- Understanding of query plan generation, query acceleration / materializations, and metadata integrity in distributed data systems.

- Please note: We can consider only candidates currently residing in the EU, EEA, or the UK