Staff Software Engineer in Test, Product Engineering

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. We are seeking a highly technical, hands-on, and high-agency Staff Software Engineer in Test 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. 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&D, Commercial, and Clinical teams. You thrive in fluid environments, adapt quickly to change, and chart a clear path forward even amid unknowns.

Responsibilities

Define and deploy comprehensive automated system integration testing frameworks that mirror Natera's multi-component service environments; Review and validate OpenAPI/Swagger REST specifications and Avro schemas for Kafka topics during architecture phase to enforce communication protocols across microservices; Collaborate with Solution Architects early in project lifecycle to isolate and address integration discrepancies within design phase; Pioneer integration of LLMs and generative AI tools within testing lifecycle to automate synthesis of test logic from L2 specifications and behavior models (Gherkin syntax); Author and execute high-fidelity integration test scenarios that traverse 3+ discrete systems across order to report journey; Minimize fragile UI automation by prioritizing asynchronous event verification (Kafka consumers/producers), webhook handlers, and database state checks; Support environment integrity by validating that intermediate component builds comply with version synchronization matrices (e.g., LIMS and PIPE dependency trees) prior to deployment; Develop and embed log-scraping AI agents into CI/CD pipeline to analyze multi-service exceptions and isolate fault vectors; Lead and align cross-functional engineering pods, Solution Architects, and Digital Product Managers toward shared quality goals; Train and mentor Senior Software Quality Engineers and Software Engineers in Test across distributed scrum pods; Introduce deliberate network latencies, container failures, and boundary conditions to validate system fail-soft and self-healing behaviors

Requirements

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; 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); Hands-on technical mastery verifying microservices, REST/gRPC endpoints, and event-driven data hubs utilizing Apache Kafka or AWS SQS/SNS; Comprehensive experience utilizing AWS cloud native services (S3, Lambdas, CloudWatch) to track and mock backend infrastructure; Prior exposure to highly structured, quality-critical engineering contexts (HealthTech, MedTech, or FinTech); Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a strictly quantitative discipline; High agency and technical initiative; Deep systems-level cognition; Cross-functional leadership through influence; User-centric validation ethos

Nice to have

Understanding of FDA design controls, IEC 62304, or HIPAA standards is highly advantageous.

Benefits

Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life and disability plans; Free testing for employees and their immediate families; Fertility care benefits; Pregnancy and baby bonding leave; 401k benefits; Commuter benefits; Employee referral program