Senior QA Engineer

Summary

Join Integral Ad Science (IAS) as a Senior Quality Engineer - Backend and play a key role in validating the performance, functionality, and reliability of our consumer platform. This hands-on, technical role combines deep SQL and API testing expertise with a strong quality mindset to identify issues early and champion a robust testing strategy. You will be instrumental in defining QA standards at IAS, collaborating closely with product and engineering teams. Initially, focusing on manual testing, you will strategically transition to increased automation. The role involves testing backend data APIs, designing automated test suites, leading manual test plan execution, collaborating with product managers, and joining engineering teams early in the development lifecycle. You will also develop API testing strategies, build testing tools, analyze API logs, and lead end-to-end testing efforts. Finally, you will set the foundation for quality engineering practices at IAS.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in backend or API-focused quality engineering roles
• Strong SQL skills and experience validating large-scale datasets and backend systems
• Experience testing RESTful APIs and microservices (gRPC a plus)
• Hands-on experience with manual testing techniques and test case development
• Familiarity with API testing tools (e.g., Postman, REST Assured, Karate)
• Working knowledge of API contract testing tools (e.g., Pact, OpenAPI validators)
• Strong understanding of HTTP protocols, headers, status codes, and payload validation
• Proficiency in at least one programming language such as Python or JavaScript for writing automation and tools
• A collaborative mindset with excellent communication skills to work across product, engineering, and QA teams

Responsibilities

• Test backend data APIs and validate service-to-service data flows with a strong emphasis on SQL-driven validations
• Design and implement scalable, automated test suites for RESTful APIs over time
• Lead the creation and execution of manual test plans that capture edge cases and simulate real-world usage
• Collaborate with Product Managers to deeply understand user flows and define test cases aligned with business requirements
• Join engineering teams early in the development lifecycle to co-author feature stories and ensure quality is embedded from the start
• Develop strategies for API contract testing, performance benchmarking, and error handling
• Build and maintain tools to streamline testing, improve reliability, and reduce manual QA effort over time
• Analyze API logs and traces to diagnose and debug complex system issues
• Lead E2E testing effort for the Consumer Platform including testing UI workflows, APIs and Data Platform
• Set the foundation for quality engineering practices at IAS, helping to define and promote QA standards and best practices

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in the ad tech, data, or analytics space
• Familiarity with data backend platforms and large-scale data pipelines
• Knowledge of performance and load testing tools (e.g., JMeter, Gatling, k6)
• Experience with API gateways, mocking, and service virtualization
• Exposure to event-driven architectures (e.g., Kafka, Pub/Sub)
• Strong understanding of authentication and authorization protocols (e.g., OAuth2, JWT)