Senior Software Engineer - (Automation & Performance)

Team Summary

Staples Promotional Products (SPP) is the branded merchandise division of Staples. Our technology team is more than a traditional IT organization—we are a team of passionate, collaborative, agile, customer-centric engineers dedicated to delivering scalable, reliable, and high-quality digital solutions.

We leverage modern engineering practices, automation, cloud technologies, and continuous testing to build enterprise-grade eCommerce applications that deliver exceptional customer experiences. As part of our Quality Engineering team, you will work closely with Product, Development, DevOps, and Architecture teams to ensure our applications meet the highest standards of functionality, reliability, and performance.

Role Summary

As a Senior Software Engineer – Quality Engineering (Automation & Performance), you will play a key role in ensuring the quality, reliability, and performance of Staples Promotional Products' enterprise applications.

The ideal candidate will have 5+ years of Quality Engineering experience, including 3+ years of Automation Testing using Selenium with Java and 2+ years of Performance Testing using Apache JMeter.

You will design scalable automation frameworks, develop automated functional test suites, execute performance testing, identify application bottlenecks, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to improve software quality throughout the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC).

Duties & Responsibilities

Test Automation

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable automation frameworks using Selenium WebDriver with Java and TestNG framework experience.
  
• Develop reusable automation scripts for Web and API applications.
  
• Execute automated regression, smoke, sanity, and functional test suites.
  
• Improve automation coverage and reduce manual testing efforts.
  
• Maintain automation test suites within CI/CD pipelines.
  
• Analyze automation failures and work closely with development teams for timely resolution.
  

Performance Testing

• Design and execute performance testing strategies using Apache JMeter.
  
• Perform:
  
• Load Testing
  
• Stress Testing
  
• Spike Testing
  
• Endurance Testing
  
• Volume Testing
  
• Develop reusable JMeter scripts with parameterization and correlation.
  
• Analyze response times, throughput, concurrent users, and system utilization.
  
• Identify application bottlenecks and provide optimization recommendations.
  

API Testing

• Automate REST API testing using Selenium-supported frameworks or REST Assured.
  
• Validate API functionality and performance.
  
• Work with JSON, XML, OAuth, JWT, and REST services.
  

Performance Analysis & Monitoring

• Monitor application performance using tools such as:
  
• Grafana
  
• Prometheus
  
• New Relic
  
• Dynatrace
  
• Splunk
  
• Analyze:
  
• Heap Dumps
  
• Thread Dumps
  
• Garbage Collection Logs
  
• CPU & Memory Utilization
  
• Perform root cause analysis for application performance issues.
  

CI/CD & Quality Engineering

• Integrate automation and performance test suites into Jenkins, Azure DevOps, or GitLab CI pipelines.
  
• Participate in release validation and continuous testing initiatives.
  
• Support Shift-Left testing and Quality Engineering practices.
  

Collaboration & Leadership

• Collaborate with Product Owners, Developers, QA, DevOps, and Architects.
  
• Participate in requirement reviews and provide testing estimates.
  
• Mentor junior QA engineers in automation and performance testing best practices.
  
• Contribute to test strategy, framework enhancements, and engineering standards.
  

Continuous Improvement

• Stay current with emerging automation and performance testing technologies.
  
• Identify opportunities to improve testing efficiency and framework capabilities.
  
• Drive automation-first and quality-first engineering practices.
  

Impact on Business

This role is critical in ensuring the quality, reliability, and performance of Staples Promotional Products' digital platforms. Through automation and performance engineering, this position enables faster releases, improved customer experience, reduced production defects, and scalable application performance.

What You Bring to the Table

• Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills.
  
• Passion for Quality Engineering and Test Automation.
  
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
  
• Ability to work independently in Agile teams.
  
• Strong mentoring and leadership capabilities.
  
• Continuous learning mindset.
  

Automation Testing

• Strong hands-on experience with Selenium WebDriver using Java.
  
• Experience in developing automation frameworks using TestNG or JUnit.
  
• Experience with Maven/Gradle build tools.
  
• Experience automating Web and API applications.
  
• Strong knowledge of Object-Oriented Programming concepts in Java.
  
• Experience with Page Object Model (POM), Data-Driven, and Hybrid frameworks.
  
• Experience using Git for source control.
  

Performance Testing

• Minimum 2 years of experience in Apache JMeter.
  
• Hands-on experience with:
  
• Load Testing
  
• Stress Testing
  
• Spike Testing
  
• Endurance Testing
  
• Experience creating JMeter scripts using parameterization, correlation, assertions, and reusable components.
  
• Ability to analyze performance reports and identify bottlenecks.
  

API Testing

• REST API testing.
  
• REST Assured or Postman.
  
• JSON/XML.
  
• OAuth/JWT authentication.
  

Monitoring & Analysis

Experience with one or more of the following:

• New Relic
  
• Dynatrace
  
• Grafana
  
• Prometheus
  
• Splunk
  

Ability to analyze:

• CPU utilization
  
• Memory utilization
  
• Heap dumps
  
• Thread dumps
  
• JVM metrics
  

Database

• Strong SQL knowledge.
  
• Experience writing complex SQL queries.
  
• Experience validating backend data.
  

CI/CD

Experience with:

• Jenkins
  
• Azure DevOps
  
• GitLab CI
  
• Git
  

Working Knowledge

• Java
  
• Selenium WebDriver
  
• TestNG/JUnit
  
• Apache JMeter
  
• Maven
  
• REST Assured
  
• SQL
  
• Linux basics
  

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, or GCP).
  
• Experience testing Microservices-based applications.
  
• Experience with eCommerce applications.
  
• Exposure to BDD frameworks such as Cucumber.
  
• Experience with Playwright or Cypress is an added advantage.
  
• Knowledge of Performance Engineering best practices.
  
• ISTQB certification or relevant automation/performance testing certifications.