Senior QA Engineer

Job Purpose

Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE) presents a unique opportunity to work with cutting-edge technology and solve complex business challenges in the financial sector. This role is responsible for testing and delivering high-quality trading, market data, clearing, settlement, compliance, and post-trade applications across the full Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC).

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior QA Engineer with strong experience in Equities, Options, Market Data, FIX Protocol, Linux, SQL, Trading Systems, Clearing & Settlement, Trade Lifecycle validation, and Trading Systems UI Testing. The ideal candidate should have proven experience designing and executing test scenarios for complex trading platforms, validating order and trade workflows, troubleshooting logs and database records, and supporting regression, UAT, production validation, and release sign-off activities.

The successful candidate will work in a dynamic, globally distributed team environment and collaborate closely with Development, Product Management, Operations, Support, and Business teams. The role requires strong domain knowledge, hands-on technical troubleshooting, strong analytical ability, clear communication, and the ability to independently drive QA activities with minimal supervision.

This role is best suited for a Senior QA professional with strong Capital Markets domain knowledge, hands-on technical troubleshooting capability, and proven experience validating complex trading, market data, clearing, settlement, UI, and trade lifecycle workflows. The candidate should be able to independently own QA delivery, collaborate across teams, improve test coverage, and support high-quality releases for mission-critical trading systems.

Responsibilities

• Trading Systems QA
  • Design, develop, and execute comprehensive test plans, test scenarios, test scripts, and test cases for Equities, Options, Market Data, Clearing, Settlement, and Trading applications.
  • Validate order entry, routing, execution, cancellation, modification, trade capture, allocation, clearing, settlement, reporting, and downstream workflows.
  • Perform functional, regression, integration, end-to-end, smoke, UAT, and production-like validation across integrated trading systems.
• Trade Lifecycle Testing
  • Validate complete trade lifecycle workflows from order entry through execution, trade capture, clearing, settlement, reporting, and downstream consumption.
  • Verify lifecycle transitions, business rules, reference data impacts, trading session behavior, and product-specific scenarios for Equities and Options.
• FIX Protocol Testing
  • Validate FIX order entry, execution reports, cancel/replace flows, cancel rejects, drop copy, trade capture, allocation, and market data message flows.
  • Analyze FIX logs for message sequencing, tag-level validation, session behavior, connectivity, reject handling, and execution flow accuracy.
• Market Data and Feed Validation
  • Test market data feed ingestion, transformation, dissemination, replay, recovery, and downstream publishing workflows.
  • Validate trades, quotes, order book data, symbol/security lifecycle events, market status messages, session transitions, and reference data updates.
  • Verify market data accuracy, completeness, timeliness, sequencing, entitlement/availability, and consistency across systems.
• Clearing and Settlement Testing
  • Validate clearing account processing, trade allocation, settlement workflows, reconciliation, and post-trade processing accuracy.
  • Ensure exchange, business, and regulatory processing requirements are correctly applied across end-to-end trade flows.
• Trading Systems UI Testing
  • Validate application screens, user workflows, navigation, field behavior, permission-based behavior, error messages, data consistency, and usability aspects.
  • Perform front-end and back-end reconciliation to confirm UI behavior aligns with database, logs, FIX messages, and downstream system outputs.
• Defect Management and QA Delivery
  • Identify, document, and track defects using Jira or equivalent tools, including clear evidence, logs, screenshots, data points, and impact details.
  • Review and triage test failures, isolate root cause, collaborate with developers and product teams, and verify fixes through retesting and regression validation.
  • Maintain clear documentation of test plans, test cases, execution results, defect summaries, sign-off notes, and release readiness updates.
• Automation and Continuous Improvement
  • Develop, maintain, and execute automated tests for regression, recurring validations, and high-value business workflows.
  • Improve test coverage, execution efficiency, defect triage, test data management, and regression quality through process and automation enhancements.
  • Use AI-based tools where appropriate for test case generation, log analysis, root cause investigation, and intelligent defect triage.
• Production, UAT, and Release Support
  • Support UAT preparation, production change validation, release testing, issue investigation, service restoration, and post-deployment verification when required.
  • Work with minimal technical supervision while maintaining strong ownership, timely communication, and quality-focused delivery.

Knowledge and Experience

• Capital Markets Domain: Strong hands-on experience with Equities, Options, electronic trading systems, market structure, exchange operations, and end-to-end trade lifecycle workflows.
• FIX Protocol: Proven ability to validate and troubleshoot FIX messages for order entry, execution, drop copy, cancel/replace, trade capture, and session-level behavior.
• Linux: Strong command-line skills for log analysis, process monitoring, file handling, grep/awk/sed usage, scripting basics, and QA environment troubleshooting.
• SQL: Hands-on experience writing SQL queries for backend validation, result verification, reconciliation, database state analysis, and test data preparation.
• Market Data: Experience validating feed ingestion, data transformation, dissemination, symbol/security lifecycle events, reference data, trade/quote data, order book data, and downstream consumption.
• QA Methodologies: Strong knowledge of functional, regression, integration, end-to-end, usability, smoke, UAT, and production-like validation techniques.
• Defect Lifecycle: Experience using Jira or similar tools to manage defects from identification through resolution verification and release closure.
• Analytical Skills: Strong ability to analyze complex issues, identify edge cases, isolate root cause, document evidence, and communicate impact clearly.
• Collaboration: Excellent communication skills and ability to work effectively with Development, Product, Operations, Support, Business, and globally distributed QA teams.
• Ownership: Ability to work independently with minimum supervision, manage multiple priorities, and deliver high-quality results within tight schedules.

Preferred Knowledge and Experience

• Experience with exchange trading platforms, order management systems, market data distribution systems, clearing platforms, or regulatory reporting applications.
• Knowledge of XDP, multicast feeds, real-time feeds, replay/recovery concepts, market status messages, order book validation, or similar market data technologies is a plus.
• Exposure to automation frameworks, CI/CD pipelines, test data management, release validation, and regression optimization practices.
• Experience supporting production deployments, UAT testing, production issue debugging, and post-release validation activities.
• Experience leveraging AI tools to improve QA productivity, including test design, log analysis, defect triage, and root cause investigation.
• Results-driven mindset with strong ownership, attention to detail, customer focus, and commitment to delivering quality in the right way.