Lead Quality Engineer

Lead Quality Engineer

At the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago, employees come first - that's why we offer a highly competitive compensation and bonus package, and access to a comprehensive benefits program designed to meet the needs of our employees.

Our Lead Quality Engineer is responsible for advancing the Bank's quality engineering capabilities by shifting from traditional test execution toward an automation-first, engineering-led quality model driving built-in quality end to end. This role combines hands-on technical delivery like an experienced SDET with team leadership, quality governance and mentoring across agile delivery teams. The role designs, develops, and maintains End to End Test Plans, scalable automated test frameworks; integrates continuous testing into CI/CD pipelines; and partners with developers, product owners, business analysts, security, architecture, operations, and risk stakeholders to ensure quality is built into every phase of the SDLC.

The position helps enable the Bank's modern engineering transformation through test automation, Performance testing, test environment, test data and DevSecOps practices. Enables AI-assisted delivery, secure pipeline controls, DORA-aligned metrics, and quality ownership across product teams. This role is expected to be both hands-on manual, automation and supervisory: directly contributing to Test plans, automation frameworks, test strategy, code review, CI/CD quality gates, and technical problem-solving, while also coaching Quality Engineers / SDETs, influencing standards, and helping product teams adopt modern quality practices.

What you can expect:

• Lead the Quality Engineering strategy cross-team and end to end, Test Management for all test engineering approaches (Functional, Regression, SIT, E2E, UAT, Performance/Load, Test Data, Test Environment), test automation architecture, Exploratory and continuous testing practices across agile product teams, ensuring quality is built into every stage of the SDLC.
• Architect, Design, develop, and maintain scalable Test plans and automated test frameworks and reusable quality engineering solutions supporting functional, API, integration, end-to-end, performance, and non-functional testing.
• Define and implement quality engineering strategies and best practices across agile teams, including system architecture review, test pyramid alignment, risk-based automation, test data strategy, environment readiness, traceability, and release quality criteria.
• Partner with Product, Engineering, Architecture, Security, Infrastructure, and Operations teams to drive shared ownership of quality, defect prevention, testability, non-functional requirements and production readiness.
• Build, Integrate and maintain automated tests using strong coding practices, quality gates, reusable libraries, page/object models, service-level test patterns, test data utilities, and CI/CD-ready execution models to enable rapid, reliable, and secure software delivery. Support DevSecOps transformation by embedding security and quality controls into the SDLC.
• Collaborate with developers, architects, product owners, business analysts, security, infrastructure, operations, and risk/compliance stakeholders to validate requirements, acceptance criteria, design quality, and production readiness.
• Review user stories, acceptance criteria, architecture designs, API contracts, data flows, and technical specifications to identify test scenarios. risks, improve testability, and prevent defects earlier in the lifecycle.
• Establish, Measure/Monitor and communicate quality metrics such as automation coverage, escaped defects, defect trends, test effectiveness, pipeline quality gate results, deployment readiness, and DORA-aligned delivery outcomes.
• Mentor, coach, provide supervisory support and technical leadership to Quality Engineers, SDETs, and other engineering team members while supporting talent development, performance, prioritization, and delivery execution.
• Champion & Promote modern engineering capabilities including AI-assisted testing, GitHub Copilot adoption, reusable automation assets, human-in-the-loop quality controls and enterprise quality engineering transformation initiatives.

Salary Range:

$108,450.00 - $180,825.00

The above represents the expected salary range for this job requisition. Ultimately, in determining your pay, we may also consider your experience, and other job-related factors. In addition to the base salary, we offer a comprehensive benefits package which can be found here: