Lead Test Engineer / Quality Assurance

Credence•Arlington, VA

1d•$180,000 - $200,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Join a team where innovation meets mission. Our AI, Cloud, Cyber, and Modernization solutions save agencies thousands of hours, safeguarding National Security, Strengthening Health and Humanitarian missions worldwide with 1,700+ team members, 1,500+ AI/ML and Data Experts, and 100+ Prime Contracts, we deliver at scale and with purpose. We’ve been recognized as a Top Workplace by the Washington Post for six (6)straight years and named to the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies thirteen (13) of the past fourteen (14) years. Credence is a welcoming home for those looking to grow and contribute to positive change. We encourage all employees to expand beyond their boundaries, dive into important world-changing Federal challenges. Credence has an immediate need for a Lead Test/Quality Assurance Engineer to support the Foreign Military Sales – Army Case Execution System (FMS-ACES) Product Office. FMS-ACES is the first Defense Business System (DBS) program in the DoDI 5000.87 Software Acquisition Pathway, within PEO Enterprise, located in the Defense Integrated Business Systems (DIBS) portfolio. FMS-ACES is a cloud-based Platform as a Service (PaaS) providing a user-centric journey design that will modernize the Army’s FMS case execution and management processes from end to end. By stream-lining business processes, data standardization, integrated through state-of-the-art interface management, FMS-ACES will provide accurate case management and business analytics enabling real-time, accurate and informed data-drive decisions for Senior Leaders. FMS-ACES is in development and once fielded subsumes capabilities of a 50-year-old legacy system and consolidates two disparate systems into a single source of Army FMS data. The new system will exchange information with 26 distinct financial and logistic systems of record partners for end-to-end process execution. FMS-ACES will support 2000 users, incorporating 6,200 active FMS cases and 88,000 active requisitions. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to the duties listed below Developed using Agile methodologies, FMS-ACES provides a unified environment for managing the full lifecycle of an FMS case: Case Management: Streamlines everything from initial case implementation to closeout. Real-Time Data: Connects to over 20 government data source systems to provide case officers with accurate, real-time information Enhanced Reporting: Includes advanced automated workflows, data visualization, and comprehensive reporting capabilities. Transparency and Collaboration: Allows better end-to-end transparency and coordination between stakeholders like the Department of State and other military departments. The government seeks a senior technical advisor to act as its authoritative representative for all domains of software test engineering, spanning unit testing, integration testing, end to end regression of mission critical workflows, security testing, and automated quality validation across a modern DevSecOps ecosystem. The advisor will shape testing strategy, evaluate vendor performance, and ensure delivery of a secure, reliable, and high quality system aligned with federal acquisition objectives.

Requirements

Active Secret Clearance is mandatory
15+ years paid experience as a software test engineer, including leadership of complex enterprise-scale systems.
10+ years hands-on experience designing, implementing, and maintaining automated testing frameworks (e.g., Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, JUnit, PyTest, Cucumber, Katalon).
10+ years operating within Agile and Scaled Agile (SAFe®) environments, with demonstrated ability to influence backlog quality and testability.
5+ years in management, oversight, or advisory roles within a DevSecOps environment, including CI/CD governance.
Demonstrated expertise developing, executing, and maintaining end to end automated test suites, including synthetic monitoring for production observability.
Proven experience designing, maintaining, and optimizing CI/CD pipelines (GitLab, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, etc.).
Demonstrated success resolving issues across cross domain environments (software, interfaces, infrastructure, documentation, security).
Demonstrated ability to create strategic test plans, define KPIs and metrics, monitor performance, and adjust execution to maintain schedule and quality.
Exceptional ability to communicate complex technical concepts to government leaders, program managers, and nontechnical stakeholders in both written and spoken formats.

Responsibilities

Draft, refine, and staff QA, QC, test plans, and test strategy documents that articulate the role of manual and automated testing in achieving acquisition objectives and measurable KPIs.
Review, critique, and advise on vendor-provided deliverables related to all facets of software testing, ensuring alignment with federal standards and industry best practices.
Partner with fellow technical advisors to ensure software testing requirements are fully integrated into broader government technical plans (architecture, security, operations, data).
Support government technical advisors in executing their test plans, ensuring consistency, completeness, and adherence to best practices.
Provide expert guidance on vendor testing approaches across accessibility, load, performance, security, functional, interface, and workflow-based testing domains.
Evaluate vendor implementation of the CI/CD pipeline, identifying opportunities for improved automation, tooling, coverage, and reliability.
Review user story acceptance criteria to ensure testability, clarity, and alignment with functional and non-functional requirements; propose improvements where needed.
Assess vendor and customer testing processes, procedures, and execution, ensuring comprehensive coverage and adherence to industry standards; recommend improvements.
Review and validate defect tickets for completeness, severity accuracy, traceability, and remediation quality, ensuring proper artifacts accompany fixes.
Collaborate with vendor development and production support teams to ensure delivery of a robust, reliable, secure, fully tested, and performant system.
Operate collaboratively within a multi-functional, multi-organizational, cross- vendor SAFe® environment, ensuring high-quality software delivery that meets or exceeds government expectations.
Drive continuous innovation by integrating AI capabilities into software testing and refining Agile practices to advance automation, test design, and delivery efficiency in support of a culture of continuous process improvement.