QE Lead, Payments

Our Story & Purpose:

Were Vancity a member-owned credit union built on the principles of inclusion and social justice. Since 1946 our relentless commitment to these values has helped us challenge the status quo and break down barriers. Weve made bold commitments to become net-zero by 2040 across all mortgages and loans and were actively pursuing strategies in Indigenous banking and financial resilience for our members.

As the largest private sector Living Wage Employer in Canada were proud to be consistently recognized as one of the countrys Top Employers. If youre ready to join our team of 2300 diverse individuals access competitive rewards and benefits and be part of a greater movement apply today!

Your Role in Supporting Our Members:

As anQE Lead Payments you will play a senior technical role responsible for ensuring the quality reliability and performance of member-facing platforms through hands-on engineering leadership and execution of automation-first practices across the SDLC. This position focuses on designing and implementing quality engineering solutions leveraging deep technical expertise in automation API-first testing AI-driven/agentic techniques and non-functional validation. This is not a traditional QA Lead role. We are looking for a senior engineer (senior SDET) to lead a team of quality engineers in a dotted line capacity building scalable code-driven quality solutions not just manage testing activities.

This is aFull-time Permanentrole based atVancity head office. Our head office is based in Vancouver but we are open to candidates in BC and Ontario. While this position provides a hybrid work arrangement you will be expected to be on-site for events and business demands when needed.

How Youll Make an Impact:

Payments & Real-Time Payments for Quality Engineering

• Leading end-to-end quality engineering for Canadian payment capabilities including Interac e-Transfer payment hub integrations account-to-account payments and future Real-Time Rail (RTR) initiatives ensuring quality reliability and compliance across the complete payment lifecycle
• Translating Interac operating rules certification requirements Payments Canada obligations and RTR readiness requirements into traceable test scenarios automated quality controls release evidence and production readiness criteria
• Defining and executing Test strategies covering payment initiation authorization routing ISO 20022 message types and validation clearing settlement reconciliation returns reversals disputes exception handling and payment finality to ensure accurate and resilient transaction processing
• Partnering with Fraud Security Risk Compliance Operations and Engineering teams to validate fraud controls authentication and authorization mechanisms transaction monitoring auditability operational controls and regulatory compliance requirements
• Building scalable automated validations for payment APIs event-driven systems and real-time transaction processing idempotency duplicate payments retries timeout handling resiliency and 24x7 operational readiness
• Supporting payment certification participant testing production readiness assessments and release governance activities by coordinating test evidence defects dependencies operational validation and quality sign-off across internal and external stakeholders

Quality Strategy & Planning

• Translating quality engineering strategy and technical direction into executable plans and approaches aligned to business and delivery needs
• Collaborating directly with product and engineering partner teams to embed quality objectives within those teams delivery contexts
• Implementing scalable data-driven automated validation approaches that reduce reliance on manual and UI-heavy testing
• Contributing to metrics and quality signals (e.g. automation coverage test reliability metrics CI/CD feedback loops) through instrumentation and KPIs
• Implementing and enforcing quality gates (API coverage performance thresholds reliability criteria) within Dev-owned CI/CD pipelines

Technical Leadership

• Providing technical leadership as a senior individual contributor to the Quality Engineering team operating as a first among equals within SDET community
• Influencing guiding and coaching Test Engineers through hands-on collaboration in various areas including coding automation design / engineering data analysis etc.
• Bringing teams together and drive alignment in ambiguous situations through technical credibility and sound business judgement not formal authority
• Identifying risks and guide teams through technical problem-solving risk-based testing and execution leadership

Automation & Tools

• Building and evolving scalable automation frameworks across API service and UI layerswith API-first as core principle
• Implementing modern API testing approaches such as contract testing service virtualization and data-driven validation
• Driving the transition from Selenium-heavy UI automation to a layered testing approach (API integration minimal UI)
• Understanding of AI-assisted and agentic testing approaches to improve coverage speed and maintainability of our test automation

Quality Advocacy

• Partnering with developers to improve testability observability and API-first approach
• Collaborating with DevOps and releasing engineering to support reliable automated deployments
• Leading root cause analysis for production issues and implementing preventative engineering solutions
• Being the Dev teams quality advocate promoting shift-left quality practices over manual and UI-driven downstream approaches

Hands-On Engineering

• Implementing automated validation across API service and system layers and systems that prevent defect leakage through early validation and automation
• Partnering and executing performance security and regression validation through automated frameworks integrated into pipelines

What Youll Bring to the Team:

• 10 years of experience in software engineering quality engineering or related field and Payments quality assurance
• Strong experience in Canadian payments ecosystems and payment processing concepts supporting payment certifications compliance testing or production readiness programs
• Experience operating as a Senior Technical Contributor or SDET
• Strong programming skills (Python JavaScript C# Java) with proven experience building and evolving automation frameworks
• Experience integrating test automation into CI/CD pipelines NFR validation
• Experience with scalable API automation frameworks (REST event-driven systems)
• Hands-on experience with tools like Playwright Cypress Postman or equivalent
• Experience with AI-powered testing or test generation: LLMs agentic and spec-driven automation
• Experience with distributed systems and microservices architectures
• Familiarity with AWS or Azure containers (Docker/Kubernetes)
• Data-driven approach to measuring and improving quality
• Ability to evaluate quality effectiveness by analyzing automation outcomes and leveraging data to identify patterns and signals

Youll Thrive Here If You Are:

• Engineering-minded Treating testing as a software engineering discipline.
• Collaborative Influencing teams and building alignment without formal authority.
• Analytical Solving complex technical problems in ambiguous environments.
• Innovative Exploring AI-driven automation and modern engineering practices.

We value lived experience so if you are interested in this role we encourage you to apply even if you feel your skills dont perfectly align with those listed.

What Youll Earn:

This role offers a salary range of $113000 to $153000 per annum. The base pay offered may vary depending on factors such as relevant qualifications skills previous experience and internal equity. As part of our total rewards package employees may also be eligible for our annual incentive program subject to program eligibility requirements.

Why Youll Love Working Here:

A career at Vancity is more than just a job youre joining a tradition of change-makers who are creating lasting change for our communities. Beyond base pay we offer a comprehensive total rewards package to ensure our employees are empowered to thrive:

• Living Wage Employer: Were the largest private-sector Living Wage Employer in Canada and consistently ranked among Canadas Top Employers
• Customizable Benefits: Permanent employees receive flexible benefit packages that can be tailored annually to meet evolving needs
• Generous Vacation: New employees start with 3-4 weeks of vacation per year with additional days earned over time
• Extra Stat Holidays: In addition to BCs 11 statutory holidays we offer 2 extra days plus care days for personal or family illness
• Immediate Health Coverage: Health and dental benefits begin on your hire date with three levels of coverage to choose from
• Defined Benefit Pension: Our retirement plan provides a guaranteed income for life recognizing that retirement looks different for everyone

Vancity Talent Programs:

Vancity supports an inclusive hiring process for candidates who self-identify as Indigenous Black or Trans. With special permission from the BC Human Rights Commissioner this initiative provides access to career development opportunities prioritized job screening and feedback. Any information you choose to share will be stored securely and used only for recruitment and career development connected to this initiative in line with the BC Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA). For details please see our dedicated Talent Programs job posting.

This role is an open vacancy and our hiring process is grounded in fairness transparency and inclusion. We are committed to an inclusive barrier-free and accessible recruitment experience for all candidates. If you require any accommodations or support at any stage of the recruitment process (including the application stage) we encourage you to let us know by contacting our Talent Acquisition team at Were here to work with you to ensure your needs are met promptly and effectively. All requests will be handled with the utmost respect and confidentiality so you can participate fully in the process.