Quality Assurance System Tester

Guidehouse•Tysons, VA

About The Position

The Quality Assurance and Test Automation Lead will support a large-scale agile software development and platform modernization program for the GrantSolutions contract. The role leads quality assurance strategy and execution while establishing and maturing the program’s automated test framework. It defines testing standards, reusable automation patterns, and test coverage across application, API, integration, data, regression, and user acceptance testing, working with delivery teams, vendors, security teams, and Federal stakeholders to improve release confidence and reduce production risk. The position provides day-to-day QA leadership, establishes the automation foundation, and ensures new and enhanced capabilities are reliable, secure, accessible, data-consistent, and ready for production release across application, API, data integration, and legacy system environments. It guides test planning and execution, improves test artifacts, documents and triages defects, verifies fixes, integrates automation into CI/CD where appropriate, mentors QA resources, and communicates quality metrics and release readiness insights to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Requirements

Must be able to obtain and maintain a Federal or DoD Public Trust; approved adjudication is required before onboarding. Candidates with an active Public Trust or suitability are preferred.
Bachelor’s degree required.
Six to eight years of experience in quality assurance, system testing, software testing, test automation, quality engineering, or related technical roles, including experience leading QA activities or test automation efforts.
Hands-on experience designing, executing, and documenting manual test cases for system, regression, integration, smoke, API, data validation, and user acceptance testing.
Hands-on experience designing, building, maintaining, and scaling automated test frameworks, scripts, reusable test libraries, reporting mechanisms, and test execution approaches using modern automation tools or scripting languages.
Experience providing technical leadership to QA resources, including reviewing test artifacts, coaching team members, defining standards, coordinating test execution, and communicating risks, dependencies, and readiness recommendations.
Experience testing web-based applications, APIs, data integrations, workflows, reports, interfaces, and end-to-end business processes across multiple 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, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and release management.
Familiarity with cloud-native application testing, containerized environments such as Docker or Kubernetes, and observability platforms.
Ability to interpret user stories, acceptance criteria, business rules, interface specifications, API contracts, data mappings, architecture guidance, and technical design documentation.
Ability to troubleshoot test failures, isolate defects, analyze logs or test results, validate fixes, and communicate quality risks to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Strong documentation skills, including maintaining test strategies, plans, cases, automation design documentation, scripts, traceability matrices, defect records, test evidence, quality metrics, and release readiness summaries.
Strong leadership, problem-solving, collaboration, and communication skills, and ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams and business stakeholders.
Self-motivated and detail-oriented, with the ability to operate in fast-paced, dynamic environments with competing testing priorities and release timelines.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting platform modernization initiatives in enterprise or government environments.
Experience supporting federal or government IT programs involving legacy system modernization, shared services, interoperability, cloud adoption, data governance, or phased capability delivery.
Experience selecting, configuring, or implementing 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, Azure DevOps, Zephyr, qTest, Confluence, or similar platforms.
Familiarity with AWS, API testing, database validation, SQL queries, data integration testing, accessibility testing, security testing, performance testing, or observability tools.
Quality, agile, testing, automation, cloud, or security certification, such as ISTQB, Certified ScrumMaster, SAFe, AWS Cloud Practitioner, AWS Developer - Associate, Security+, or similar credentials.
Knowledge of AI-assisted test design techniques for functional, regression, API, and end-to-end test coverage.

Responsibilities

Plan, design, execute, and document system, regression, smoke, integration, API, data validation, and user acceptance testing for an agile platform modernization program.
Stand up and mature an automated test framework, including tool selection support, framework architecture, coding standards, reusable libraries, test data strategy, execution patterns, reporting, and maintenance practices.
Analyze user stories, acceptance criteria, business rules, interface specifications, API contracts, data mappings, and technical design documentation to define complete and traceable test coverage.
Perform end-to-end testing across modernized application components, legacy system touchpoints, APIs, integrations, workflows, reports, data exchanges, and security-related access paths.
Support API and integration testing by validating request and response behavior, error handling, data transformation logic, authentication and authorization behavior, and downstream processing outcomes.
Document defects with reproducible steps, expected and actual results, test evidence, severity, priority, environment details, and supporting screenshots or logs when appropriate.
Collaborate with developers, integration engineers, data teams, Product Owners, Scrum Masters, vendors, and security teams to triage defects, verify fixes, clarify requirements, and support release readiness decisions.
Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines where appropriate and lead automated test execution, results review, failure analysis, reporting, environment coordination, and framework improvement.
Mentor testers, review test cases and automation scripts, promote consistent standards, coordinate cross-team test dependencies, and communicate quality risks and readiness recommendations.
Establish quality metrics and dashboards for automation coverage, regression pass rates, defect trends, escaped defects, blocked tests, test execution progress, and release readiness.
Support accessibility, security, performance, data quality, and operational readiness testing in coordination with specialized teams and approved program standards.
Improve QA processes, test automation frameworks, defect management practices, test documentation, and release 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 through Corestream, including critical care, hospital indemnity, accident insurance, legal assistance, and identity theft protection
Position may be eligible for a discretionary variable incentive bonus