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.

- C ollaborative, in-office operating model

- Retirement program (401k and Pension)

- Medical, dental and vision insurance

- Lifestyle Spending Account

- Competitive PTO plan

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11 paid holidays per year

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Who we are

Our mission at FHLBank Chicago: To partner with our members in Illinois and Wisconsin to provide them competitively priced funding, a reasonable return on their investment, and support for their community investment activities.

Simply said, we're a bank for banks and other financial institutions, focused on being a strategic partner for our members and working together to reinvest in our communities, from urban centers to rural areas. Created by Congress in 1932, FHLBank Chicago is one of 11 Federal Home Loan Banks, government sponsored in support of mortgage lending and community investment.

What it’s like to work here

At FHLBank Chicago, we bring people together. We are committed to a high performing, engaged workforce, and to supporting the communities we serve across Illinois and Wisconsin. Our Buddy Program pairs new hires with tenured employees to guide their onboarding. Our professional development and training opportunities through upskilling, mentorship programs, and tuition reimbursement allow employees to grow their career with us. Our collaborative, in-office operating model brings teams together to foster innovation, connection, and shared success. To support balance and flexibility, employees are provided an allocation of remote days to use as needed throughout the year.

What you’ll do

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, HR, Finance, ERP platform owners, security, architecture, operations, and risk stakeholders to ensure quality is built into every phase of the SDLC.

The position enables the Bank’s modern engineering transformation across Workday, HR, Finance, ERP, and SaaS platforms 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.

How you’ll make an impact

- Leverage Kainos Smart to design, execute, and manage comprehensive testing activities for Workday HR/Finance implementations, upgrades, and ongoing enhancements. Lead testing of semi-annual Workday releases.

- Utilize Azure DevOps to manage test cases, track defects, monitor testing progress, and produce clear, actionable quality dashboards for project stakeholders.

- Validate SaaS applications across functional, integration, regression, performance and end-to-end testing scenarios to ensure reliability, usability, and alignment with business requirements.

- Lead business users through User Acceptance Testing (UAT), including test planning, coordination, execution support, defect triage, and sign-off readiness.

- Plan, develop, maintain, and execute automated test suites that improve testing efficiency, strengthen coverage, and support repeatable quality assurance 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,Perfornance/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, automated test frameworks, and reusable quality engineering solutions supporting Workday, HR, Finance, ERP, SaaS, 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, HR and Finance partners, ERP platform owners, 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 .

- Review user stories, acceptance criteria, architecture designs, API contracts, data flows, and technical specifications to identify risks, improve testability, and prevent defects earlier in the lifecycle. Lead root-cause analysis and continuous improvement initiatives, driving systemic solutions that reduce risk, improve reliability, and strengthen engineering outcomes.

- Support audit readiness and regulatory expectations by ensuring quality processes produce traceable evidence, controlled approvals, policy-aligned gates, and measurable risk reduction.

- 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.

What you’ll bring

- Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, or a related technical discipline; equivalent experience may be considered.

- 10+ years of Quality Engineering or SDET experience, including hands-on leadership supporting Workday, HR, Finance, ERP, SaaS, or related enterprise platforms.

- 5 + years of experience mentoring, coaching, or supervisory oversight to Quality Engineers, SDETs, or software delivery teams.

- Experience designing, implementing, and maintaining enterprise