Staff Software Engineer Jobs in Wisconsin
Staff Software Engineer jobs in Wisconsin are in steady demand, concentrated in fintech, insurance technology, healthcare software, and enterprise systems, with openings at the senior-individual-contributor level and above. Milwaukee, Madison, and the Fox Valley corridor lead hiring activity, with established employers like Northwestern Mutual, Epic Systems, and Fiserv maintaining consistent staff-level engineering needs. The most sought-after specialties in Wisconsin are distributed systems, cloud platform engineering, and backend architecture supporting large-scale data workloads. Find a role that fits below and apply directly.
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Job Description Summary
The Staff Software Engineer will serve as a technical leader for test automation and Continuous Testing across CT software products. This role is responsible for defining the technical vision, architecture, and roadmap for scalable automation frameworks and platforms that enable reliable, repeatable, and efficient software verification.The individual will lead the design and evolution of automation solutions using technologies such as Squish, Selenium, BDD frameworks, and CI/CD platforms. The role requires deep technical expertise, hands on software development capabilities, and the ability to guide globally distributed engineering teams toward common automation standards, framework guidelines, and engineering practices.
The Staff Software Engineer will work across product, software, verification, systems, architecture, and DevOps teams to improve automation coverage, test reliability, execution efficiency, and Continuous Testing adoption. The individual will influence technical decisions across multiple teams and product lines while ensuring that automation platforms remain scalable, maintainable, reusable, and aligned with product and business roadmaps.
Job Description
In this role, you will:
- Serve as the technical leader for the test automation team, providing technical direction, architecture guidance, and hands on support for complex automation challenges.
- Define and drive the technical vision, architecture, and roadmap for the Continuous Testing platform across multiple CT products and software configurations.
- Lead the design, development, integration, and maintenance of scalable automation frameworks using Squish, Selenium, BDD, and other appropriate automation technologies.
- Establish a common automation architecture that supports desktop, web, service, and hybrid application workflows.
- Provide technical leadership for automating complex desktop applications, including applications built using Java Swing and applications containing embedded browser technologies.
- Drive the integration of Squish and Selenium automation into a unified Continuous Testing platform that supports reliable end to end workflow verification.
- Define and enforce automation development guidelines, framework standards, coding practices, review criteria, tagging conventions, reporting requirements, and test reliability expectations.
- Influence globally distributed software and verification teams to adopt common automation frameworks, reusable components, engineering practices, and Continuous Testing guidelines.
- Partner with global teams to understand product specific needs while ensuring that locally developed solutions align with the overall platform architecture and long term technical strategy.
- Provide hands on technical leadership through architecture reviews, design reviews, code reviews, technical deep dives, troubleshooting, and implementation of critical framework components.
- Lead the modernization of existing automation assets, including conversion of legacy Squish tests and older BDD implementations into standardized, maintainable, and reusable automation models.
- Develop reusable automation libraries, services, utilities, and platform capabilities that can be adopted across multiple products and engineering teams.
- Improve automation reliability through effective synchronization, object recognition, environment management, failure recovery, logging, diagnostics, and reporting capabilities.
- Lead technical efforts to distinguish product defects, automation issues, infrastructure failures, configuration problems, and environmental conditions during automated test execution.
- Drive improvements in automated test execution time, parallel execution, resource utilization, configuration based test selection, and overall platform scalability.
- Enable onboarding of Selenium and other automation suites into the Continuous Testing infrastructure.
- Ensure that the Continuous Testing platform supports development testing, integration testing, dry runs, regression testing, and formal verification and validation activities.
- Collaborate with DevOps and infrastructure teams to integrate automation frameworks with CI/CD pipelines, build systems, test environments, reporting solutions, and engineering dashboards.
- Establish technical metrics and quality indicators for automation coverage, execution stability, failure trends, test maintainability, and platform performance.
- Identify opportunities to apply AI assisted development and analysis tools to test creation, failure analysis, impact assessment, reporting, and engineering productivity.
- Partner with Product Managers, Architects, Systems Engineers, Verification teams, Software teams, and DevOps teams to translate system and product needs into an actionable automation platform roadmap.
- Evaluate technology choices and make informed recommendations regarding framework architecture, platform evolution, reuse, scalability, maintainability, and build versus buy decisions.
- Provide technical mentorship to automation engineers and software engineers, helping them strengthen their capabilities in framework development, software design, test architecture, debugging, and engineering best practices.
- Facilitate technical alignment across teams, resolve competing technical approaches, and drive decisions that support common engineering goals.
- Proactively identify technical risks, scalability concerns, framework limitations, and adoption barriers, and drive solutions before they affect product delivery.
- Demonstrate end to end ownership of automation capabilities from requirements and architecture through implementation, integration, validation, release, adoption, and ongoing support.
Education Qualification
Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a STEM major, including Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics, with a minimum of 7 years of relevant software engineering experience.
A Master’s Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline is preferred.
Required Technical Qualifications
- Extensive experience in software development, software architecture, test automation, or automation platform engineering.
- Demonstrated experience leading the architecture and development of enterprise scale test automation frameworks or Continuous Testing platforms.
- Strong hands on experience with Squish for automating complex desktop applications.
- Strong hands on experience with Selenium for web application automation.
- Experience designing automation solutions using BDD frameworks such as Cucumber or comparable technologies.
- Strong programming experience using one or more languages such as Python, Java, JavaScript, or C++.
- Experience designing reusable software components, automation libraries, framework services, APIs, and engineering utilities.
- Experience integrating automated test frameworks with CI/CD systems such as Jenkins or comparable pipeline technologies.
- Strong understanding of software design principles, object oriented development, design patterns, data structures, algorithms, and scalable system architecture.
- Experience troubleshooting complex automation failures involving the application, framework, infrastructure, network, configuration, test data, or execution environment.
- Experience with source control, code review, build systems, artifact management, automated reporting, and software quality tools.
- Experience with Agile software development, requirements analysis, estimation, planning, and incremental delivery.
- Experience working in a regulated software development environment is preferred.
- Experience with medical device software, clinical workflows, imaging applications, or CT systems is preferred.
Desired Characteristics
Technical Expertise
- Demonstrates deep expertise in automation framework architecture, software design patterns, scalable platform development, and Continuous Testing practices.
- Has the technical depth to lead complex architecture discussions while remaining hands on when critical framework or platform problems require direct involvement.
- Understands the strengths, limitations, and appropriate use of Squish, Selenium, BDD, service level testing, and other automation approaches.
- Designs automation platforms for reliability, extensibility, configurability, maintainability, observability, and reuse.
- Promotes modular framework design and shared components to reduce duplication across products and global teams.
- Establishes effective technical governance without slowing down engineering execution or innovation.
- Leads technical deep dives and architecture reviews across multiple product teams and technology stacks.
- Drives modernization of legacy automation into standardized and maintainable framework patterns.
- Champions Continuous Testing and CI/CD practices that enable faster feedback, improved reliability, and more predictable software delivery.
- Evaluates AI assisted engineering capabilities and applies them where they provide measurable improvements in automation development, failure analysis, impact assessment, or engineering productivity.
- Understands the relationship between automated testing, product risk, requirements traceability, release readiness, and formal verification.
Business Acumen
- Connects automation platform investments with product quality, verification efficiency, release predictability, and customer outcomes.
- Evaluates technology trends and distinguishes sustainable engineering value from short term technology trends.
- Makes informed build versus buy recommendations and clearly articulates technical tradeoffs, cost, maintainability, scalability, and long term value.
- Prioritizes platform capabilities based on business impact, technical risk, product roadmap needs, and adoption potential.
- Understands that a successful automation platform requires both strong technology and consistent adoption by engineering teams.
- Balances immediate product delivery needs with long term framework sustainability and platform evolution.
Leadership
- Leads primarily through technical credibility, influence, collaboration, and consistent engineering judgment.
- Establishes and communicates a clear technical vision for automation and Continuous Testing.
- Influences global teams to adopt common framework standards, development guidelines, and engineering practices.
- Builds alignment across product teams even when priorities, architectures, or existing approaches differ.
- Explains the reasoning behind technical decisions and communicates downstream implications clearly.
- Proactively identifies obstacles affecting automation development, platform adoption, test reliability, or execution efficiency, and leads their resolution.
- Navigates accountability effectively within a global and matrixed organization.
- Facilitates constructive technical discussions and drives decisions when teams have competing approaches or priorities.
- Mentors engineers and develops future technical leaders within the automation organization.
- Creates a shared sense of purpose across software, verification, architecture, infrastructure, and DevOps teams.
- Learns from failures and uses those learnings to improve framework architecture, engineering practices, and technical decision making.
Personal Attributes
- Demonstrates strong critical thinking and can identify patterns across product failures, automation behavior, infrastructure conditions, and engineering processes.
- Communicates complex technical topics clearly to engineers, architects, managers, and other stakeholders.
- Is comfortable operating in ambiguous situations and brings structure, technical direction, and clear decision making.
- Builds trust across global teams and creates alignment without relying on direct reporting authority.
- Maintains a hands on engineering mindset while providing broader technical leadership.
- Challenges existing approaches constructively and recommends practical, sustainable alternatives.
- Demonstrates strong ownership, persistence, curiosity, and accountability.
- Continuously evaluates emerging technologies, tools, and engineering practices that can improve software quality and delivery efficiency.
- Promotes a culture of reuse, automation, engineering excellence, technical learning, and continuous improvement.
- Energizes teams around a common technical vision and maintains momentum when technical or organizational challenges arise.
We will not sponsor individuals for employment visas, now or in the future, for this job opening.
Additional Information
GE HealthCare offers a great work environment, professional development, challenging careers, and competitive compensation. GE HealthCare is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by law.
GE HealthCare will only employ those who are legally authorized to work in the United States for this opening. Any offer of employment is conditioned upon the successful completion of a drug screen (as applicable).
While GE HealthCare does not currently require U.S. employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19, some GE HealthCare customers have vaccination mandates that may apply to certain GE HealthCare employees.
Relocation Assistance Provided: No
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Staff Software Engineer Job Market in Wisconsin
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Who's Hiring



Top Industries Hiring
- Manufacturing
What Wisconsin Employers Look For
The qualifications that appear most often in staff software engineer jobs across Wisconsin.
- Bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, software engineering, or a related technical field
- Seven or more years of professional software engineering experience with demonstrated technical leadership
- Deep proficiency in at least one systems or backend language such as Java, Go, or C++
- Experience designing and delivering large-scale distributed systems or cloud-native architectures
- Proven ability to mentor mid-level engineers and lead cross-functional technical initiatives
- Familiarity with agile delivery practices and engineering standards in regulated industries such as finance or healthcare
Staff Software Engineer Jobs in Wisconsin: Frequently Asked Questions
How do you become a staff software engineer in Wisconsin?
Wisconsin does not require a state-issued license to work as a software engineer, so the path runs through education and experience. Most employers expect a bachelor's degree in computer science, software engineering, or a closely related field, followed by several years of progressively senior engineering work. Demonstrating leadership on complex technical projects, contributing to architectural decisions, and mentoring junior engineers are the markers Wisconsin hiring teams look for when evaluating candidates for staff-level roles.
How much do staff software engineers make in Wisconsin?
Staff software engineers in Wisconsin earn a median of about $122,660 a year, based on May 2025 Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data, ranging from around $77,710 for the lowest 10% to over $168,630 for the top 10%. Pay rises with experience, specialty, and employer.
Which companies hire staff software engineers in Wisconsin?
Companies currently hiring staff software engineers in Wisconsin include Abbott, CVS Health, and GE HealthCare, per current listings on Migrate Mate as of September 2026. Wisconsin's concentration of large insurers, financial technology firms, and healthcare software companies means staff-level engineering roles are especially active in enterprise and platform engineering teams.
Which Wisconsin cities have the most staff software engineer jobs?
Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, and Madison lead Wisconsin in staff software engineer openings. Milwaukee drives volume through its dense cluster of financial services and insurtech employers, Madison benefits from Epic Systems and a strong university-anchored tech ecosystem, and the Fox Valley corridor adds openings tied to manufacturing technology and enterprise software operations at mid-sized regional companies.
Are there remote staff software engineer jobs in Wisconsin?
Yes, and more than most fields. About 100% of staff software engineer openings tied to Wisconsin are remote or hybrid as of September 2026, reflecting how naturally the role translates to distributed work environments. Platform, backend, and cloud infrastructure specialties within staff engineering tend to carry the highest share of fully remote arrangements among Wisconsin-based postings.
How can I get hired as a staff software engineer in Wisconsin with little or no experience?
The most realistic path for someone without staff-level experience is to enter at a mid-level or senior software engineer role first, then build toward the staff designation. Epic Systems in Verona and Fiserv in Milwaukee both run structured new-graduate programs that place engineers on large-scale product teams where staff-level mentorship is common. Lateral moves from senior backend or platform engineer roles are the most direct bridge, and candidates who can show architectural contributions, open-source work, or a portfolio of system design projects gain a measurable edge in Wisconsin interviews.
Where can I find and apply to staff software engineer jobs in Wisconsin?
You can find and apply to staff software engineer jobs in Wisconsin on Migrate Mate, which lists current openings across the state. Find roles that fit your background and apply directly to the ones that match.
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