Test Engineer Intern

Description

Position Overview

The Implementation Engineering team builds and supports internal tools, integrations, and automations that improve operational efficiency and business outcomes. The team works closely with engineers, business partners, subject-matter experts, and end users to confirm that solutions work correctly, safely, and consistently across real workflows, roles, systems, and company-specific configurations.

 Internship Overview

The Test Engineering Internship is a 12-week summer experience designed to give you a real look into a career in software quality and test engineering within Implementation Engineering. You'll gain hands-on experience supporting internal software and business initiatives while learning how cross-functional teams identify needs, deliver solutions, and measure outcomes. The experience is designed to build practical skills that prepare you for a potential full-time opportunity after graduation. Throughout the summer, you'll:

• Get hands-on experience through onboarding, mentorship, job shadowing, reverse shadowing, and exposure to real business and technology work.
• Build business and industry knowledge through weekly learning activities, assignments, leadership conversations, and team experiences.
• Work on a meaningful project aligned to Implementation Engineering goals, developing recommendations and presenting your work to managers and leaders.
• Grow your professional skills through workshops, peer networking, mentorship, and our Intern Summit at Paylocity's headquarters.
• Connect with leaders and peers across the organization while gaining a broader understanding of how different teams work together.
• Showcase your growth through mid-point and final presentations highlighting your key learnings, project results, and recommendations.

Primary Responsibilities 

The below represents the primary duties of the intern position; others may be assigned as needed. To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Review requirements, user stories, process maps, acceptance criteria, prior defects, and end-user feedback; translate them into clear, risk-based test plans, scenarios, test cases, test data, and expected results.
• Perform API testing for REST-based  services, including requests and responses, status codes, schemas, authentication and authorization, validation rules, error handling, data persistence, negative conditions, boundary conditions, and repeat-run      behavior.
• Execute functional, smoke, regression, integration, exploratory, usability, and end-to-end testing across supported environments and workflows.
• Validate complete business journeys, including user actions, APIs, integrations, data updates, workflow decisions, approvals, downstream systems, notifications, and final user-visible outcomes.
• Test permissions, role-based access, restricted actions, intended task actors, notification recipients, and data isolation between users, companies, clients, modules, and environments.
• Test dependencies and failure modes, including unavailable resources, missing forms or files, invalid references, partial success, delays, timeouts, retries, safe skips, recovery behavior, and clear user-facing warnings.
• Use representative company and client configurations to verify that company-specific data, identifiers, attachments, security groups, notifications, and other sensitive references are not exposed or carried into the wrong destination.
• Create actionable Jira defects with reproducible steps, expected and actual results, environment and test-data details, screenshots or logs, severity, business impact, and links to related requirements or test cases.
• Partner with engineers, subject-matter experts, and end users to facilitate user acceptance testing, verify fixes, summarize pass/fail status and residual risks, and maintain reusable regression suites, checklists, evidence, and test documentation.

Requirements

Education and Experience

• Active enrollment in a bachelor's degree program with an anticipated graduation between December 2027 and May 2028.
• Preference for Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, Information Systems, Data Science, Mathematics, or related technical majors with an interest in software quality and test engineering.
• Must have a GPA of 3.0 or higher.
• Coursework, projects, or practical exposure related to software engineering, software testing, web applications, APIs, databases, automation, data analysis, or troubleshooting preferred.
• Strong technical aptitude; familiarity with HTTP, REST APIs, JSON, SQL, browser developer tools, logs, Git, Jira, or an API client such as Postman, Bruno, or Insomnia is helpful but not  required.
• Exposure to a programming language such as Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, or C# is preferred; willingness to learn is more important than mastery of a specific language.
• Excellent time management, analytical thinking, persistence, and problem-solving skills.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to document evidence precisely, reproduce issues, and explain quality risks without overstating certainty.
• High attention to detail and commitment to process adherence, data responsibility, confidentiality, and working safely in approved environments.

Physical requirements

• Ability to sit for extended periods: The role requires sitting at a desk or workstation for long periods, typically  7-8 hours a day.
• Use of computer and phone systems: The employee must be able to operate a computer, use phone systems, and type. This includes using multiple software programs and inquiries simultaneously.

 Paylocity is an equal opportunity employer. Paylocity is committed to the full inclusion of all individuals. We recruit, train, compensate, and promote regardless of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, veteran status, and other protected status as required by applicable law. At Paylocity, we believe diversity makes us better.

 We embrace and encourage our employees' differences in age, culture, ethnicity, family or marital status, gender identity or expression, language, national origin, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, race, religion or spiritual belief, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, veteran status, and other characteristics that make our employees unique. We actively cultivate these differences through our employee resource groups (ERGs), employee experiences, perspectives, talents, and approaches to drive innovation in the software and services we provide our customers.

 We comply with federal and state disability laws and make reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities. To request reasonable accommodation in the job application or interview process, please contact LeaveBenefits@paylocity.com. This email address is exclusively designated for such requests, aligning with federal and state disability laws. Please do not send resumes to this email address, as they will be removed.