Functional Specialist Job Chicago area,Illinois USA,Quality Assurance

Top 3 must-haves

Knowledge of NACHA or ISO
20022, Knowledge as Quality Engineer

Job Description

Ensure the quality, compliance, and resilience of ACH processing across NACHA and ISO 20022 rails. You'll design automated test plans that validate NACHA file format (File/Batch/Entry/Addenda) and ISO 20022 payment messages (e.g., pain, pacs, camt), verify ACH Positive Pay and other risk controls, and ensure coverage for returns/NOCs/IAT, micro-entries, same-day settlement, and rule change regression. This role demands ACH experience at a Financial Institution (operations, settlement, and/or reconciliation), ACH domain depth (including AAP/APRP certifications), plus the ability to understand and translate ISO schemas and business rules into executable test scenarios.

Core

Responsibilities

Standards & Format Validation

NACHA:
Validate SEC codes (PPD, CCD, CTX, WEB, IAT, ARC, BOC, POP, RCK, XCK), addenda content (e.g., ANSI X12 for CTX), effective entry dates, batch control totals, file headers/controls, and micro-entry descriptors/compliance.
ISO 20022:
Author and execute tests for schemas and business rules in pain.
001 (customer credit transfer initiation), pacs.
008 (FI to FI credit transfer), pacs.
002 (status), and camt.
053/054 (statements/advices) where applicable to ACH-orchestrated flows and downstream reporting.
Mapping & Translation:
Validate NACHA ↔ ISO 20022 transformations (field mapping, code set equivalence, amount/sign conventions, character sets, remittance structures), including CTX remittance ↔ ISO structured/unstructured remittance (Rmt Inf) integrity and truncation rules.

Positive Pay & Debit Filters (Risk Controls)

Design tests for ACH Positive Pay rules:
- Company /blacklists, authorized SEC code scopes, amount limits, frequency/velocity, effective date ranges, and account-level entitlements.
- Exception handling flows (match, mismatch, decision windows), notification channels, and posting suppression until a decision is applied.
Validate ACH debit blocks/filters, vendor enrollment/authorization life cycles, and change management (add/update/remove authorizations) with audit trails.
Test exposure limits, limit hierarchies (account, company, TPS), nested TPS detection, and alert/escalation routing.

Lifecycle & Exception Scenarios

Returns:
Full set R01–R39, dishonored returns (R61–R67), contested dishonored; timing validations and reason-code specific behaviors.
NOC:
End-to-end Notification of Change capture, routing to originator, remediation SLA verification, and regression.
Reversals & Reclamations:
Validate authorization, timing windows, account status changes (e.g., DNE flows).
IAT:
Gateway presence, OFAC screening, required addenda fields; test cross-border nuances in mapping to ISO messages.
WEB Debit Account Validation:
Validate the Nacha WEB Debit Account Validation Rule (pre-authentication, account validation methods, failure handling).

Operational Quality & Posting Controls

Validate same-day ACH vs next day posting rules, cutoff behavior, holiday calendars, late-day exception handling, and settlement windows.
Confirm reconciliation and reporting (ACH advices, settlement reports, exception queues; ISO camt messages where used).
Verify audit readiness: comprehensive QA artifacts, defect evidence, risk sign-offs, and rule-change coverage.

Security, Compliance, and Data Integrity

OFAC/BSA/AML integration tests (screening, case creation, hold/release, escalation paths).
Authorization records retention/warranty coverage, consent revocation, and dispute workflows (e.g., R10/R11 unauthorized).
Data lineage across NACHA files and ISO messages; ensure remittance, company , and account data accuracy end to end.

Required Qualifications

Hands-on ACH expertise (ODFI/RDFI, IAT, returns/NOC, micro-entries, same-day ACH).
Proficiency in NACHA Operating Rules & Guidelines and ISO 20022 payments message validation (schemas, semantic validations, business rules).
Experience with test tools (REST, JMeter, Cucumber, Zephyr, UI test frameworks - Playwright or Storybook), and PostgreSQL & DynamoDB for ledger/settlement and exception verification.
Strong analytical documentation skills; defect triage and audit-ready reporting.

Industry Certifications

AAP – Accredited ACH Professional (NACHA):
Core ACH rules, formats, risk, and operations proficiency.
APRP – Accredited Payments Risk Professional (NACHA):
Payments risk framework, fraud controls, TPS oversight, compliance.

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