Quality Assurance Lead

Overview

As a Quality Assurance Lead, you will own the quality function for a multi-product federal program and to lead a team of QA testers. You will set the testing standards, give program leadership a clear view of risk and release readiness, and grow the people doing the testing. When a release needs more hands, you will step into the weeds and test alongside the team.

Contributions

• Manage and mentor a team of manual and automation testers: allocate work against capacity, hold regular 1:1s, give timely feedback, and support career growth.
• Identify gaps in team expertise, conduct QA technical screens, and support recruiting, onboarding, and resource planning.
• Support morale and retention, and handle QA administration such as timesheet approvals and PMR preparation.
• Define and maintain testing standards, QA processes, and reusable templates that every product team can follow.
• Lead program- and project-level test planning, and consult on and review UAT plans, Section 508 accessibility test plans, test data management plans, and automated testing plans.
• Join PI Planning and track progress of work against QA milestones.
• Own QA deliverables, requirements traceability, the defect management process, and defect metrics and process reviews.
• Build and maintain standard QA KPIs, and report on risk, delivery health, and release readiness across all products to program leadership and the customer.
• Establish and enforce quality gates at each stage of the delivery pipeline.
• Guide the strategy for increasing the program's use of automated testing, and help the team grow and maintain the test suites.
• Oversee test environment configuration and test data setup so testing cycles start on time with reliable data.
• Take part in Agile ceremonies (backlog refinement, sprint and PI planning, stand-ups, retrospectives) and help write clear, testable acceptance criteria.
• Work closely with the Tech Lead, Technical Architect, Project Managers, DevOps Lead, and HelpDesk Lead.
• Build the customer relationship from a quality perspective: consult on best practices, support process standardization, and make sure the customer is informed, not surprised.

Qualifications

Required:

• Must be able to obtain a government clearance
• 4+ years in software quality assurance
• A track record of managing people: setting priorities, running 1:1s, giving direct feedback, and growing testers into stronger practitioners.
• Experience defining test strategy, plans, and standards across more than one product or project at the same time.
• The judgment to assess risk and release readiness, and the communication skills to present it plainly to technical and non-technical audiences, including customers.
• Strong manual testing and test design skills, with requirements traceability and defect management in Jira or a similar tool.
• Hands-on experience with test automation for web applications and APIs (for example Selenium, Postman, REST Assured, or Provar), enough to guide strategy and review the team's work.
• Working knowledge of UAT planning, test data management, and Section 508 accessibility testing.
• Experience delivering in Agile environments (Scrum, SAFe, or similar), including backlog refinement and PI or sprint planning.
• Proficiency with Jira, Confluence, Git, and a test management tool such as TestRail or Zephyr.
• A Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.

 Preferred:

• 2+ years leading, mentoring, or directing other testers.
• Experience supporting federal government programs, including agency-specific onboarding and reporting.
• Experience testing enterprise Salesforce implementations (Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Experience Cloud), including writing SOQL queries and working in sandbox environments.
• DHS Trusted Tester certification or other accessibility testing credentials.
• ISTQB, Salesforce, or SAFe certifications.
• Familiarity with Apex, Lightning Web Components, Flows, and reading developer console logs.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines (for example Jenkins or GitHub Actions) and embedding automated tests in them.
• Experience with performance or security testing practices.

About steampunk

Steampunk relies on several factors to determine salary, including but not limited to geographic location, contractual requirements, education, knowledge, skills, competencies, and experience. The projected compensation range for this position is $90,000 to $130,000.  The estimate displayed represents a typical annual salary range for this position. Annual salary is just one aspect of Steampunk’s total compensation package for employees. Learn more about additional Steampunk benefits here. 

 

Identity Statement

As part of the application process, you are expected to be on camera during interviews and assessments. We reserve the right to take your picture to verify your identity and prevent fraud.

 

Steampunk is a Change Agent in the Federal contracting industry, bringing new thinking to clients in the Homeland, Federal Civilian, Health and DoD sectors.  Through our Human-Centered delivery methodology, we are fundamentally changing the expectations our Federal clients have for true shared accountability in solving their toughest mission challenges. If you want to learn more about our story, visit http://www.steampunk.com.

 

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Steampunk participates in the E-Verify program.