- Location: Chicago, Illinois
- Type: Contract
- Job #105137
Title: IT Software Engineer 5 (Lead SDET)
Location: Chicago, IL
Work Arrangement: Hybrid (2 days onsite initially)
Future Requirement: Full return to office expected (5 days onsite)
Duration: 12-Month Contract
Compensation: $96-$98/hr
Role Summary
We are seeking an experienced
Lead Software Engineer / Lead SDET to support Caterpillar's VL Autonomy Program within Fleet Management. This individual will lead quality engineering efforts, participate in autonomy-related design discussions, expand automation testing frameworks, and collaborate with multiple engineering teams to ensure software quality across complex enterprise applications.
This is a highly visible leadership role requiring hands-on automation expertise, test strategy ownership, and experience leading Quality Engineering teams. The ideal candidate will possess deep experience designing test automation frameworks, API testing, integration testing, and mentoring engineers in Agile development environments.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead and mentor Quality Engineering teams (minimum 5+ QEs)
- Develop and maintain enterprise test automation frameworks
- Design automation solutions using Java, Cucumber, and BDD frameworks
- Create and execute automated API, functional, integration, and regression tests
- Develop test strategies, test plans, and testing roadmaps
- Participate in architecture reviews and design discussions
- Support Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) initiatives
- Collaborate with Product Owners, Developers, and Business Stakeholders
- Drive quality processes across multiple applications and teams
- Perform end-to-end system integration testing
- Conduct exploratory and manual testing when needed
- Provide technical leadership for onshore and offshore QA teams
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's Degree
- 10+ years of Software Quality Engineering or Test Automation experience
- 5+ years in a Lead QA / Lead SDET role
- Experience leading teams of 5+ Quality Engineers
- 8+ years of test automation framework design experience
- Strong Java development experience (5+ years)
- Experience with Cucumber, JBehave, or other BDD frameworks
- Extensive REST API testing experience
- Experience developing test scripts, test cases, and test data
- Strong SQL and database querying skills
- Full-stack and third-party integration testing experience
- End-to-end system testing experience
- Experience with Jenkins, Git, CI/CD, and DevOps practices
- Strong communication and leadership skills
Preferred Experience
- Python development
- AWS Cloud technologies
- TDD (Test Driven Development)
- Continuous Integration best practices
- Code review processes
- JMeter performance testing (3+ years preferred)
- Load and performance testing
- Apigee or API Gateway technologies
- Agile/Lean development methodologies
- Microservices architecture
- Strong documentation skills
- Large-scale enterprise software platforms
- Autonomous vehicle, fleet management, or transportation platforms
Travel & Work Environment
- No travel required
- Hybrid work arrangement beginning Day 1
- Candidates must be comfortable working onsite in Chicago
- Expected transition to full-time onsite attendance in the future
- Team consists of 20+ members
- Collaborative Agile development environment