Staff Software Engineer in Test, Product Engineering at Natera

United States

<p><strong>Position Summary</strong></p> <p>Natera is at the forefront of personalized genetic testing, transforming the management of disease worldwide. As we scale our life-saving diagnostics, we are fundamentally transforming our approach to software quality and reliability.</p> <p>We are seeking a highly technical, hands-on, and high-agency Principal Engineer, Software in Test (SIT) to join our Oncology Comprehensive Genomic Profiling (CGP) Product Engineering team. In this technical leadership role, you will serve as the test architect and lead developer for our product integration efforts, ensuring we deliver robust, on-time solutions across our CGP portfolio. You will act as the technical backbone for validating our most complex "Pillar" projects — operating across a sophisticated system of interconnected software products and distributed microservices. This demands deep, expert-level mastery of the system from two dimensions: working closely with architects to understand how it is built, and partnering with product managers to understand how it is used. You will translate that dual expertise into tests that reflect real-world complexity end-to-end — from order ingestion through lab execution to patient reporting — catching failure modes that only someone who truly knows the system would anticipate. You will bring an AI-native mindset as a core differentiator — leveraging advanced LLM methodologies to auto-generate test scenarios, analyze system logs, surface anomalies, and continuously optimize our CI/CD pipeline.</p> <p>Crucially, while this is an individual contributor role, you will operate as a central leader — driving consensus, architectural alignment, and engineering excellence through influence rather than formal authority across Engineering, R&amp;D, Commercial, and Clinical teams. You thrive in fluid environments, adapt quickly to change, and chart a clear path forward even amid unknowns.</p> <p><strong>Key Responsibilities</strong></p> <p><strong>Technical Test Strategy &amp; Integration Architecture</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>Define Integration Test Architecture</strong>: Architect and deploy comprehensive, automated system integration testing frameworks that mirror Natera's complex, multi-component service environments.</li> <li><strong>Contract-First Validation</strong>: Review and validate OpenAPI/Swagger REST specifications and Avro schemas for Kafka topics during the architecture phase to enforce strict communication protocols across microservices.</li> <li><strong>Shift Left Testing Initiative</strong>: Collaborate with Solution Architects early in the project lifecycle to isolate and address integration discrepancies within the design phase, long before a code freeze occurs.</li> <li><strong>AI-Native Framework Engineering</strong>: Pioneer the integration of LLMs and generative AI tools within the testing lifecycle to automate the synthesis of test logic from Level 2 (L2) specifications and behavior models (Gherkin syntax).</li> </ul> <p><strong>End-to-End Automation &amp; Environment Governance</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>Long-Arc Workflow Automation</strong>: Author and execute high-fidelity integration test scenarios that traverse 3+ discrete systems across the order to report journey.</li> <li><strong>Resilient API &amp; Event Testing</strong>: Minimize fragile UI automation by prioritizing asynchronous event verification (Kafka consumers/producers), webhook handlers, and database state checks.</li> <li><strong>Staging Guardrail Enforcement:</strong> Support environment integrity by validating that intermediate component builds comply with version synchronization matrices (e.g., LIMS and PIPE dependency trees) prior to deployment.</li> <li><strong>AI-Driven Root Cause Analysis</strong>: Develop and embed log-scraping AI agents into the CI/CD pipeline to analyze multi-service exceptions, rapidly isolating fault vectors within complex distributed networks.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Technical Leadership &amp; Cross-Functional Synergy</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>Cross-Functional Leadership via Influence</strong>: Lead and align cross-functional engineering pods, Solution Architects, and Digital Product Managers toward shared quality goals. You will drive architectural consensus and testing process adherence through technical credibility, persuasion, and partnership rather than formal reporting lines.</li> <li><strong>Technical Mentorship</strong>: Train and mentor Senior Software Quality Engineers (SQEs) and Software Engineers in Test across distributed scrum pods, championing systems thinking and advanced software automation practices.</li> <li><strong>Chaos Engineering &amp; Resiliency Experiments</strong>: Introduce deliberate network latencies, container failures, and boundary conditions to rigorously validate the system's fail-soft and self-healing behaviors.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Qualifications</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>Professional Experience</strong>: 12+ years of active software development or test automation engineering experience, with at least 5 years in a senior or lead capacity, and a proven history of deploying automation structures for enterprise-grade distributed systems.</li> <li><strong>Technical Language Fluency</strong>: Expert programming capabilities in backend languages such as Java, Python, or Go, with hands-on experience in modern test automation frameworks including Playwright, and a solid grasp of containerized environments (Docker, Kubernetes).</li> <li><strong>Distributed Architecture Expertise</strong>: Hands-on technical mastery verifying microservices, REST/gRPC endpoints, and event-driven data hubs utilizing Apache Kafka or AWS SQS/SNS.</li> <li><strong>Cloud Native Proficiency:</strong> Comprehensive experience utilizing AWS cloud native services (S3, Lambdas, CloudWatch) to track and mock backend infrastructure.</li> <li><strong>Regulated Domain Background</strong>: Prior exposure to highly structured, quality-critical engineering contexts (HealthTech, MedTech, or FinTech). Understanding of FDA design controls, IEC 62304, or HIPAA standards is highly advantageous.</li> <li><strong>Educational Background</strong>: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a strictly quantitative discipline.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>High Agency &amp; Technical Initiative</strong>: You are a natural builder who thrives in fluid, fast-moving environments. Rather than waiting for predefined test specifications, you inspect code, audit requirements, chart a path forward amid unknowns, and implement frameworks proactively.</li> <li><strong>Deep Systems-Level Cognition</strong>: You bring expert-level mastery of the system from two dimensions — architectural depth and functional fluency. You can decipher how minor database modifications in upstream services impact report rendering down the line, catching failure modes that only someone who truly knows the system would anticipate.</li> <li><strong>Cross-Functional Leadership through Influence:</strong> You operate as a central leader without formal authority — driving consensus, alignment, and engineering excellence across Engineering, R&amp;D, Commercial, and Clinical teams through technical credibility, communication, and emotional intelligence.</li> <li><strong>User-Centric Validation Ethos</strong>: You understand that automated technical verifications are incomplete if the final end product degrades the clinical or laboratory operational experience.</li> </ul> <p><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">#LI_DNI</span></p><div class="content-conclusion"><p><strong>OUR OPPORTUNITY</strong></p> <p>Natera™ is a global leader in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing, dedicated to oncology, women’s health, and organ health. Our aim is to make personalized genetic testing and diagnostics part of the standard of care to protect health and enable earlier and more targeted interventions that lead to longer, healthier lives.</p> <p>The Natera team consists of highly dedicated statisticians, geneticists, doctors, laboratory scientists, business professionals, software engineers and many other professionals from world-class institutions, who care deeply for our work and each other. When you join Natera, you’ll work hard and grow quickly. Working alongside the elite of the industry, you’ll be stretched and challenged, and take pride in being part of a company that is changing the landscape of genetic disease management.</p> <p><strong>WHAT WE OFFER</strong></p> <p>Competitive Benefits - Employee benefits include comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life and disability plans for eligible employees and their dependents. Additionally, Natera employees and their immediate families receive free testing in addition to fertility care benefits. Other benefits include pregnancy and baby bonding leave, 401k benefits, commuter benefits and much more. We also offer a generous employee referral program!</p> <p>For more information, visit <a href="http://www.natera.com/" data-cke-saved-href="http://www.natera.com/">www.natera.com</a>.</p> <p>Natera is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to ensuring a diverse and inclusive workplace environment, and welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives. Inclusive collaboration benefits our employees, our community and our patients, and is critical to our mission of changing the management of disease worldwide.</p> <p>All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply, and will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, age, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with applicable laws.</p> <p><em>If you are based in California, we encourage you to read this important information for California residents.&nbsp;</em></p> <p>Link: <a href="https://www.natera.com/notice-of-data-collection-california-residents" target="_blank">https://www.natera.com/notice-of-data-collection-california-residents/</a></p> <p>Please be advised that Natera will reach out to candidates with a @<a href="http://natera.com/" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://natera.com&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1657718972773000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3zRwaIiu7070kJKNG4hjRm">natera.com</a>&nbsp;email domain ONLY. Email communications from all other domain names are not from Natera or its employees and are fraudulent. Natera does not request interviews via text messages and does not ask for personal information until a candidate has engaged with the company and has spoken to a recruiter and the hiring team. Natera takes cyber crimes seriously, and will collaborate with law enforcement authorities to prosecute any related cyber crimes.</p> <p>For more information:<br>- <a href="https://www.bbb.org/article/tips/12261-bbb-tip-employment-scams" target="_blank">BBB announcement on job scams</a>&nbsp;<br>- <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/cyber" target="_blank">FBI Cyber Crime resource page</a>&nbsp;</p></div>