Quality Assurance System Tester

Guidehouse•Bethesda, MD

2d•$87,100 - $130,700

About The Position

The Quality Assurance System Tester supports a large-scale agile software development program for a Federal Health contract, covering new software capabilities and ongoing support for legacy system functionality. Embedded with software delivery teams, the tester validates application features, integrations, data flows, legacy touchpoints, and release packages throughout the software development lifecycle. The role designs and executes manual and automated tests, supports developer-led quality practices, analyzes defects, verifies code changes, and helps ensure capabilities meet functional, technical, security, accessibility, and operational requirements before production release. The tester collaborates with developers, Product Owners, Scrum Masters, integration engineers, data teams, DevSecOps engineers, vendors, and Federal stakeholders. Work includes reviewing user stories and technical designs, developing test scenarios, validating software behavior, supporting application and data testing, documenting and retesting defects, and contributing automated regression tests to CI/CD pipelines. The role helps improve engineering quality, release confidence, and production risk management across new application components, legacy functionality, and system integrations.

Requirements

Must be able to obtain and maintain a Federal or DoD Public Trust; approved Public Trust adjudication is required before onboarding.
Bachelor’s degree required.
At least four years of experience in software quality assurance, software testing, application testing, test automation, systems testing, or related SDLC roles.
Hands-on experience designing, executing, and documenting test cases for application features, integrations, database changes, workflows, regression, smoke testing, and user acceptance testing.
Hands-on experience developing, maintaining, and executing automated test scripts using tools, frameworks, scripting languages, or code-based testing approaches.
Experience testing web applications, data integrations, interfaces, reports, background processes, and end-to-end business workflows across multiple software environments.
Experience with defect tracking, test management, requirements traceability, test evidence capture, test-data preparation, release validation, and defect retesting.
Understanding of the SDLC, agile delivery, DevSecOps practices, version control, branching and merging, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and release management.
Ability to interpret user stories, acceptance criteria, business rules, interface specifications, data mappings, architecture guidance, and technical design documentation.
Ability to troubleshoot test failures, isolate defects, analyze logs, query data when needed, validate fixes, and communicate software quality risks to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Strong documentation skills, including maintaining test plans, test cases, test scripts, traceability matrices, defect records, test evidence, and release-readiness summaries.
Strong problem-solving, collaboration, and communication skills, including ability to work with cross-functional software delivery teams and business stakeholders.
Self-motivated and detail-oriented, with the ability to work effectively in fast-paced, dynamic environments with competing testing priorities and release timelines.

Nice To Haves

Active Public Trust or suitability is preferred.
Experience supporting initiatives that include new application capabilities and ongoing validation of legacy functionality in enterprise or government environments.
Experience supporting federal or government IT programs involving legacy systems, shared services, interoperability, cloud environments, data governance, system integrations, or phased capability delivery.
Experience with test automation tools or frameworks such as Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, Cucumber, Postman/Newman, REST Assured, JUnit, TestNG, or similar tools.
Experience with test management, defect tracking, and agile delivery tools such as Jira, Subject 7, Confluence, or similar platforms.
Familiarity with AWS, SQL/database validation, data integration testing, accessibility testing, security testing, performance testing, logging, monitoring, or observability tools.
Exposure to Git-based workflows, pull request validation, build verification, unit test awareness, static analysis results, or other engineering practices that support software quality.
Quality, agile, testing, automation, cloud, or security certification preferred, such as ISTQB, Certified ScrumMaster, SAFe, AWS Cloud Practitioner, Security+, or similar credentials.

Responsibilities

Review user stories, acceptance criteria, technical designs, data mappings, interface specifications, and release plans to define complete and traceable test coverage.
Design, execute, and maintain manual and automated test cases for application features, integrations, workflows, reports, database changes, regression scenarios, smoke testing, and user acceptance testing.
Develop and maintain automated test scripts, test suites, reusable test data, and regression assets for use across development, test, staging, and release environments.
Perform end-to-end testing of new application components, supported legacy functionality, data exchanges, background jobs, user workflows, reporting outputs, and role-based access paths.
Validate data persistence, transformation logic, error handling, access behavior, and downstream processing outcomes through integration and database testing.
Document defects with reproducible steps, expected and actual results, evidence, severity, priority, environment details, and supporting screenshots or logs as appropriate.
Collaborate with developers to reproduce defects, analyze logs and test results, validate fixes, clarify expected behavior, and support code promotion and release-readiness decisions.
Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines where appropriate and support test execution, results review, failure analysis, environment coordination, and reusable test-data maintenance.
Support accessibility, security, performance, data quality, and operational-readiness testing in coordination with specialized teams and approved program standards.
Improve software quality practices, test automation frameworks, defect management, traceability, release validation, and engineering quality metrics.

Benefits

Medical, prescription, dental, and vision insurance.
Personal and family sick time and company-paid holidays.
Parental leave.
401(k) retirement plan.
Group term life and travel assistance.
Voluntary life and AD&D insurance.
Health Savings Account and health care and dependent care Flexible Spending Accounts.
Transit and parking commuter benefits.
Short-term and long-term disability.
Tuition reimbursement, personal development, certifications, and learning opportunities.
Employee referral program.
Corporate-sponsored events and community outreach.
Care.com annual membership.
Employee Assistance Program.
Supplemental benefits via Corestream, including critical care, hospital indemnity, accident insurance, legal assistance, and identity-theft protection.
Position may be eligible for a discretionary variable incentive bonus.
Flexible benefits package.