Jobs › Options Clearing Corporation

Lead Associate Principal, Software Engineering, SDET

Options Clearing Corporation · Chicago, IL · $163,600–$204,600 a year · Full time

Posted Sep 17, 2026 · We last checked this listing on Oct 6, 2026

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Likely interview questions for this role

Written from this job description, not a generic list. Each one notes what the interviewer is really checking.

About your past

Tell me about a DR or failover test you led across regions. What broke and what did you learn?

What they are checking: Real experience leading disaster recovery testing across primary, secondary and tertiary regions.

Tell me about a time you mentored engineers or set the testing standard for a team.

What they are checking: Leadership expected of a lead associate principal who shapes how the quality organization works.

What would you do

The release date is fixed, and your test shows the system misses its throughput target by 15 percent. What do you do?

What they are checking: Integrity in reporting risk and the ability to give leaders options rather than just a red flag.

How do you test failover in a cloud-native architecture without putting production-like data at risk?

What they are checking: Risk-aware test planning in a systemically important, regulated environment.

About the work

Walk me through how you would build a load profile and ramp scenario for a clearing system that sees huge spikes around market open and expiration.

What they are checking: Performance test design grounded in real traffic patterns rather than flat synthetic load.

You have LoadRunner, JMeter and Gatling available. How do you choose which to use for a given test?

What they are checking: Hands-on tool judgment and the tradeoffs between protocol support, scripting and scale.

Explain RTO and RPO, and how you would prove through testing that a system meets its regulatory targets.

What they are checking: Translating regulatory recovery objectives into measurable, defensible test evidence.

A load test shows latency climbing after 40 minutes but CPU looks fine. How would you investigate?

What they are checking: Diagnostic depth around memory leaks, connection pools, GC and downstream bottlenecks.

How do you performance test an event-driven system where there is no simple request and response to time?

What they are checking: Understanding of measuring throughput, lag and end-to-end latency in distributed messaging systems.

How have you built performance test automation into a CI/CD pipeline using Python or Java?

What they are checking: Engineering skill in making performance testing repeatable instead of a one-off manual exercise.

Practice this interview out loud.

Offer builds a real interview for this exact role at Options Clearing Corporation from your resume and this job description, asks the questions one at a time, and tells you what landed. The first one is free.

Practice this out loud

The full job description

As published by Options Clearing Corporation.

Duties: Responsible to design, develop and maintain new and existing automation frameworks, continued evaluation of test cases for inclusion in test regression, tests coverage and automation of newly implemented functionality, and development of tools to enable acceptance test efficiencies. Work closely with Software Developers, Project Management and Customer Support to form and follow quality procedures, standards and specifications. Create, maintain and execute automation test plans, writing code against software platforms, estimating testing efforts, analyzing and communicating test results, defect tracking and participation in day to day acceptance test activities, and contribute to the company’s performance and scalability testing efforts. Develop, enhance and extend automation frameworks. Identify quality tasks during team sprint cycle and implement automation for new features. Analyze and communicate test results and defect tracking. Participate in performance and load test efforts. Assist in the planning, creation and control of the test environments and test data. Define test strategy, conduct requirements analysis for testability, identify scope, conduct risk and mitigation planning, configuration management planning, write master and detailed test plans for test planning and design. Participate in the review of acceptance test procedures and processes and provide recommendations for improvements to eliminate redundancies in testing and improve efficiency. Architect enterprise-wide automation frameworks that span frontend, API, and backend testing layers using Selenium, RestAssured, and PostgreSQL; design reusable component libraries, including Cucumber step definition libraries; engineer TestNG thread-safe dependency injection patterns and repeatable test runs at scale. Orchestrate full-cycle testing strategies across multi-tier architectures by implementing Functional, Integration, and Regression testing, validating end-to-end business critical UI workflows and cross-browser rendering via Selenium-based suites; verify Microservices communication, payload validation, and fault tolerance through API-level integration tests; and ensure Backend system integrity by testing database transactions, data pipelines, and message queue interactions across SQL and NoSQL environments. Architect and maintain production-grade CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins, Docker, and Kubernetes, with stage-gated quality controls, parallel execution strategies, and environment-specific deployment strategies; containerize test execution environments using Docker to ensure dependency consistency and portability across dev and staging. Migrate manual and script-based testing to Cucumber or Karate BDD frameworks by establishing shared Gherkin feature libraries; embed BDD best practices through structured onboarding, feature file review workflows, and scenario design standards. Up to 40% telecommuting permitted. OCC offers a standard benefits package.*This position qualifies for The Options Clearing Corporation’s Employee Referral Program.* Education & Experience Required: Bachelor’s degree in computer science, IT, or related and five (5) years of experience as a software developer in test, quality assurance lead or related Special Skills Required: 3- or 4- year bachelor’s degree is accepted. Must have work experience with each of the following: 1) Architect enterprise-wide automation frameworks that span frontend, API, and backend testing layers using Selenium, RestAssured, and PostgreSQL; design reusable component libraries, including Cucumber step definition libraries; engineer TestNG thread-safe dependency injection patterns and repeatable test runs at scale; 2) Orchestrate full-cycle testing strategies across multi-tier architectures by implementing Functional, Integration, and Regression testing, validating end-to-end business critical UI workflows and cross-browser rendering via Selenium-based suites; verify Microservices communication, payload validation, and fault tolerance through API-level integration tests; and ensure Backend system integrity by testing database transactions, data pipelines, and message queue interactions across SQL and NoSQL environments; 3) Architect and maintain production-grade CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins, Docker, and Kubernetes, with stage-gated quality controls, parallel execution strategies, and environment-specific deployment strategies; containerize test execution environments using Docker to ensure dependency consistency and portability across dev and staging; and 4) Migrate manual and script-based testing to Cucumber or Karate BDD frameworks by establishing shared Gherkin feature libraries; embed BDD best practices through structured onboarding, feature file review workflows, and scenario design standards. Up to 40% telecommuting permitted. Salary $163,600-$204,600 Apply: OCC offers a standard benefits package. See a full list of benefits here: https://www.theocc.com/careers/thriving-together . Apply online at www.theocc.com . No calls. EOE. About Us The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) is the world's largest equity derivatives clearing organization. Founded in 1973, OCC is dedicated to promoting stability and market integrity by delivering clearing and settlement services for options, futures and securities lending transactions. As a Systemically Important Financial Market Utility (SIFMU), OCC operates under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. OCC has more than 100 clearing members and provides central counterparty (CCP) clearing and settlement services to 19 exchanges and trading platforms. More information about OCC is available at www.theocc.com. Benefits A highly collaborative and supportive environment developed to encourage work-life balance and employee wellness. Some of these components include: • A hybrid work environment, up to 2 days per week of remote work • Tuition Reimbursement to support your continued education • Student Loan Repayment Assistance • Technology Stipend allowing you to use the device of your choice to connect to our network while working remotely • Generous PTO and Parental leave • 401k Employer Match • Competitive health benefits including medical, dental and vision Visit https://www.theocc.com/careers/thriving-together for more information. Compensation • The salary range listed for any given position is exclusive of fringe benefits and potential bonuses. If hired at OCC, your final base salary compensation will be determined by factors such as skills, experience and/or education. • In addition, we believe in the importance of pay equity and consider internal equity of our current team members as part of any final offer. • We typically do not hire at the maximum of the range in order to allow for future and continued salary growth. We also offer a substantial benefits package as noted on www.theocc.com/careers • All employees may be eligible for a discretionary bonus. Discretionary bonuses are based on various factors, including, but not limited to, company and individual performance and are not guaranteed. Step 1 When you find a position you're interested in, click the 'Apply' button. Please complete the application and attach your resume. Step 2 You will receive an email notification to confirm that we've received your application. Step 3 If you are called in for an interview, a representative from OCC will contact you to set up a date, time, and location. For more information about OCC , please click here . OCC is an Equal Opportunity Employer

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