Senior QA Engineer - dreamDEX

About the role

Joining Somnia means you will own the quality strategy for dreamDEX, a next-generation decentralized exchange engineered for extreme performance. In this role, you are the guardian of reliability for a system engineered to execute orders in sub-10 milliseconds while maintaining a zero-fee trading model. You will validate the complex interactions between matching engines, settlement layers, and margin protocols to ensure they meet the highest standards of accuracy and speed. This position places you at the forefront of competing directly with centralized exchanges by ensuring the platform is robust enough to handle institutional-grade trading volumes. You will work closely with engineers and product teams to translate complex requirements into rigorous test scenarios that leave no edge case untested. Your analysis will directly influence release decisions and risk mitigation strategies for the entire dreamDEX ecosystem. You will champion the use of automation and intelligent tooling to scale testing efforts without sacrificing coverage or precision. Ultimately, you will ensure that users can trade on dreamDEX with confidence, knowing the backend has been verified to the highest degree.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Oversee all testing activities for the dreamDEX system, including order matching, settlement, margin management, liquidations, deposits, withdrawals, API interactions, and the user interface.
• Develop comprehensive test plans for new product launches, covering spot trading, perpetuals, and event contracts.
• Construct automated testing frameworks, utilizing AI to enhance test case generation, agent-driven exploration, and issue triage.
• Focus on identifying and testing edge cases, such as partial fills, network reorganizations, oracle deviations, liquidation cascades, and potential vulnerabilities in agent-driven trading.
• Communicate test findings and progress clearly and proactively to all relevant stakeholders, facilitating informed decision-making.
• Conduct performance and load testing to evaluate Somnia's throughput and latency capabilities.
• Manage the defect lifecycle, ensuring proper prioritization, root cause analysis, and prevention of recurring issues.
• Design and execute test scenarios that simulate real-world market volatility and high-frequency trading conditions.
• Validate the integrity of on-chain and off-chain data feeds to ensure accurate price discovery and order execution.
• Collaborate with developers to reproduce complex bugs and verify fixes before they reach production.
• Implement regression testing suites to protect against feature degradation with every new deployment.
• Monitor system health indicators and create dashboards to visualize test coverage and risk exposure.
• Partner with security specialists to verify that trading mechanisms are resilient against manipulation and exploits.
• Document testing procedures and standards to ensure consistency and knowledge sharing across the team.

Requirements

• A minimum of 7 years of quality assurance experience specifically within perpetuals trading systems, either at a decentralized exchange or a centralized exchange with significant Web3 exposure.
• Deep understanding of the failure points in matching engines, settlement processes, and margin systems.
• A strong commitment to automation as the primary testing approach, with advanced test engineering skills.
• Daily use of AI tools for test writing, generation, and triage, with comfort in testing systems where AI agents are participants.
• Ability to operate effectively and with significant autonomy in a rapidly evolving environment.
• Solid experience with test-driven development practices and behavior-driven development methodologies.
• Proficiency in scripting languages to build custom test tools and automate repetitive tasks.
• A meticulous eye for detail and the patience to debug intricate, multi-layered system interactions.

Nice to have

• Experience with smart contract testing, fuzzing techniques, or a background in security.
• Familiarity with testing REST and WebSocket trading APIs, as well as bot or agent integrations.
• Prior experience guiding a new trading venue or a major trading product through its initial releases.

Skills & tools

• QA Automation
• Test Strategy Development
• AI-assisted Testing
• Performance Testing
• Load Testing
• Defect Management
• Perpetual Trading Systems
• Matching Engines
• Settlement Systems
• Margin Systems
• Web3 Technologies

Practical notes

• This role is fully remote.
• The ideal candidate will be located within a UK-friendly timezone (+/- 4 hours).
• Compensation includes a competitive salary and token incentives.