Quality Assurance Engineer

The Real Deal•New York City, NY

2d•$90,000 - $100,000

About The Position

The Real Deal is seeking a Quality Assurance (QA) Engineer / Release Manager to ensure the stability, performance, and quality of our digital products — including our news site, TRD Data platform, subscription systems, and high-impact advertising units. You will play a critical role in reducing bugs, preventing regressions, protecting ad revenue, and accelerating our product development velocity. You will collaborate closely with developers, editorial, research, design, and product operations in a fast-moving, Agile environment. This is a hands-on role ideal for someone who loves testing, problem-solving, and being the last line of defense before production.

Requirements

2+ years experience in software QA or release engineering.
Strong knowledge of QA methodologies, tools, and processes.
Experience writing detailed test plans, cases, and acceptance criteria.
Familiarity with Agile/Scrum development cycles.
Solid SQL or scripting experience for data validation.
Ability to design and maintain regression test suites.
Experience testing across multiple browsers/devices.
Excellent communication and documentation skills.

Nice To Haves

Experience with automated testing frameworks (Cypress, Playwright, Selenium, etc.).
Experience in publishing, media technology, or ad tech.
Experience testing subscription systems, paywalls, or authentication flows.
Understanding of SEO-sensitive features (structured data, schema, performance).
Performance or security testing experience.

Responsibilities

Design and execute QA plans for new and existing features across web and mobile.
Perform functional, regression, exploratory, and cross-browser/device testing with a focus on UX/UI consistency and usability.
Validate ads, subscriptions, paywalls, logins, and core product interactions across TRD products.
Test data-driven products for accuracy, access control, and user experience.
Maintain test cases, acceptance criteria, and regression checklists.
Document clear, reproducible bugs and collaborate with developers to ensure high-quality releases.
Own the full staging → production release pipeline.
Ensure all tickets have clear requirements before development begins.
Run structured QA cycles for every sprint and release.
Create and distribute release notes for internal stakeholders (Editorial, Ads, Subscriptions, Marketing).
Track post-release defects and coordinate hotfixes when needed.
Monitor critical functionality immediately after deployments.
Track key QA metrics (e.g., defect rate, regression frequency, release stability).
Identify recurring issues and partner with devs to eliminate root causes.
Promote and enforce QA best practices across the digital team.
Work with Advertising to validate ad rendering, view-ability, and delivery.
Work with Editorial on template testing, performance, and structured data changes.
Work with Subscriptions on funnel QA and error diagnosis.
Work with Product Ops to ensure smooth intake, prioritization, and status updates.