QA and Test Engineer Role

OpenDataJobs•Washington, DC

About The Position

QA and Test Engineers produce evidence that helps teams determine whether software is ready to trust. They translate requirements, user stories, and risks into tests, perform testing manually and through automation, and report findings clearly for developers and decision-makers. The work spans the full stack, including user interfaces, APIs, services, integrations, databases, and operating environments. It can include UI and UX testing, usability testing with representative users, functional, regression, integration, end-to-end, and user acceptance testing, as well as performance and load testing. Accessibility testing may assess conformance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and WCAG, and testers may work with security specialists on checks in the delivery pipeline. QA and Test Engineers plan test strategies and schedules, build and maintain test environments and test data, write and maintain automated test suites, track defects through resolution, define release criteria, and report whether the available evidence meets those criteria. Testing begins early and continues throughout delivery. Engineers collaborate with product owners, business analysts, developers, and DevSecOps engineers to design quality into delivery, measure it continuously, and document it for audits or independent reviews. This is a role registration, not a description of a specific opening. Specific openings may emphasize manual or user acceptance testing, UI/UX, full-stack and end-to-end testing, test automation, API and integration testing, performance engineering, accessibility, or quality leadership. Each opening will specify its own expected depth, tools, location, employment terms, and other qualifications.

Requirements

Experience designing and running tests for web applications or enterprise systems.
Depth in at least one area: manual and exploratory testing, test automation, end-to-end testing across UI/APIs/services/databases, performance testing, or accessibility testing.
Working knowledge of test design techniques such as boundary value analysis and exploratory testing, applied to negative and regression tests.
Hands-on skill with tools relevant to the candidate's specialty.
Ability to trace defects using reproducible steps, logs, data, and configuration, and to work with developers on issues spanning system layers.
Disciplined defect tracking and test documentation, with attention to accuracy in regulated or mission-critical work.
Ability to report defects with reproducible steps and useful diagnostic evidence.
Care for accessibility and the experience of users with different interaction needs.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Playwright, Selenium, Cypress, or Postman for test automation.
Experience with JMeter or k6 for performance testing.
Experience using screen readers and automated checkers for accessibility testing.
A testing certification, such as one from the International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB).
Experience with independent verification and validation.
Experience with a particular scripting or programming language, SQL, or cloud-hosted test environments, where required by a specific opening.
For accessibility-focused openings, experience with keyboard and screen-reader testing, manual conformance checks, and automated accessibility tools.
For AI-enabled openings, experience testing applications that call models, evaluating outputs against expected behavior and safeguards, or using AI-assisted tools to generate and maintain tests with human review.

Responsibilities

Turn requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, and risks into test strategies, plans, cases, and scenarios.
Perform manual and automated testing across user interfaces, APIs, services, integrations, databases, and environments.
Conduct applicable UI/UX, usability, functional, regression, integration, end-to-end, user acceptance, performance, load, compatibility, and accessibility testing.
Build and maintain test environments and test data.
Write and maintain automated test suites, including tests at unit, API, and UI levels, and integrate them into CI/CD pipelines where applicable.
Track defects through resolution, provide reproducible evidence, and retest fixes.
Define release criteria and report whether test evidence supports release readiness.
Prepare traceability matrices, test evidence, and release-readiness reports for go-live decisions, authorization reviews, and audits.
Collaborate with product owners, business analysts, developers, DevSecOps engineers, and security specialists.
Identify unclear requirements and communicate unresolved release risks.