Quality Assurance System Tester
Guidehouse · McLean
Job Family:
Testing
Travel Required:
Clearance Required:
Job Description Summary
The Quality Assurance and Test Automation Lead will support a large-scale agile software development and platform modernization program supporting the GrantSolutions contract. This role will lead quality assurance strategy and execution while also standing up, implementing, and maturing the program’s automated test framework. The lead will define testing standards, establish reusable automation patterns, guide test coverage across application, API, integration, data, regression, and user acceptance testing, and work closely with Product Owners, Scrum Masters, developers, integration engineers, data teams, vendors, security teams, and Federal stakeholders to improve release confidence and reduce production risk.
What You Will Do:
We are seeking a Quality Assurance and Test Automation Lead with strong hands-on experience in quality engineering, manual and automated testing, and test framework implementation to support a large-scale GrantSolutions platform modernization effort. This role will provide day-to-day QA leadership, establish the automation foundation, and ensure new and enhanced capabilities are reliable, secure, accessible, data-consistent, and ready for production release across complex application, API, data integration, and legacy system environments.
The Quality Assurance and Test Automation Lead will define test approaches, review and improve test artifacts, guide test execution, document and triage defects, verify fixes, and develop an automation framework that supports repeatable regression testing within the CI/CD process. This individual will mentor QA resources, coordinate with delivery teams, strengthen quality practices, improve test efficiency, and provide clear quality metrics and release readiness insights to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Plan, design, execute, and document system, regression, smoke, integration, API, data validation, and user acceptance testing for a large-scale platform modernization program delivered through agile execution.
- Stand up and mature the 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 or authorization behavior, and downstream processing outcomes.
- Document defects clearly with reproducible steps, expected and actual results, test evidence, severity, priority, environment details, and supporting screenshots or logs when appropriate.
- Work closely 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 continuous framework improvement.
- Provide QA leadership across modernization workstreams by mentoring testers, reviewing test cases and automation scripts, promoting consistent standards, coordinating cross-team test dependencies, and communicating quality risks and readiness recommendations.
- Establish quality metrics and dashboards, including automation coverage, regression pass rates, defect trends, escaped defects, blocked tests, test execution progress, and release readiness indicators.
- Support accessibility, security, performance, data quality, and operational readiness testing in coordination with specialized teams and approved program standards.
- Contribute to continuous improvement of QA processes, test automation frameworks, defect management practices, test documentation, and release quality metrics.
What You Will Need:
- Must be able to OBTAIN and MAINTAIN a Federal or DoD "PUBLIC TRUST"; candidates must obtain approved adjudication of their PUBLIC TRUST prior to onboarding with Guidehouse. Candidates with an ACTIVE PUBLIC TRUST or SUITABILITY are preferred.
- Bachelor’s degree required.
- Minimum of Six (6) to Eight (8) 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, automated test 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 Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), agile delivery, DevSecOps practices, version control, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and release management.
- Familiarity with cloud-native application testing, containerized environments (Docker/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 clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Strong documentation skills, including the ability to maintain test strategies, test plans, test cases, automation design documentation, test scripts, traceability matrices, defect records, test evidence, quality metrics, and release readiness summaries.
- Strong leadership, problem-solving, collaboration, and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively with Product Owners, developers, integration engineers, data teams, vendors, security teams, QA resources, and business stakeholders.
- Self-motivated, detail-oriented, and able to operate effectively in fast-paced, dynamic environments with competing testing priorities and release timelines.
What Would Be Nice To Have:
- Experience supporting platform modernization initiatives within 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 cloud environments, 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 preferred, such as ISTQB, Certified ScrumMaster, SAFe, AWS Cloud Practitioner, AWS Developer - Associate Security+, or similar credentials.\
- Knowledge of AI-assisted test design techniques to achieve comprehensive functional, regression, API, and end-to-end test coverage while reducing manual effort.
What We Offer:
Guidehouse offers a comprehensive, total rewards package that includes competitive compensation and a flexible benefits package that reflects our commitment to creating a diverse and supportive workplace.
Benefits include:
Medical, Rx, Dental & Vision Insurance
Personal and Family Sick Time & Company Paid Holidays
Parental Leave
401(k) Retirement Plan
Group Term Life and Travel Assistance
Voluntary Life and AD&D Insurance
Health Savings Account, Health Care & Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts
Transit and Parking Commuter Benefits
Short-Term & Long-Term Disability
Tuition Reimbursement, Personal Development, Certifications & Learning Opportunities
Employee Referral Program
Corporate Sponsored Events & Community Outreach
Care.com annual membership
Employee Assistance Program
Supplemental Benefits via Corestream (Critical Care, Hospital Indemnity, Accident Insurance, Legal Assistance and ID theft protection, etc.)
Position may be eligible for a discretionary variable incentive bonus
About Guidehouse
Guidehouse is an Equal Opportunity Employer–Protected Veterans, Individuals with Disabilities or any other basis protected by law, ordinance, or regulation.
Guidehouse will consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable law or ordinance including the Fair Chance Ordinance of Los Angeles and San Francisco.
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