Quality Assurance Engineer

CTEC is a leading technology firm that provides modernization, digital transformation, and application development services to the U.S. Federal Government. Headquartered in McLean, VA, CTEC has over 300 team members working on mission-critical systems and projects for agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security, Internal Revenue Service, and the Office of Personnel Management. The work we do effects millions of U.S. citizens daily as they interact with the systems we build. Our best-in-class commercial solutions, modified for our customers’ bespoke mission requirements, are enabling this future every day. The Company has experienced rapid growth over the past 3 years and recently received a strategic investment from Main Street Capital Corporation (NYSE: MAIN). In addition to our recent growth in Federal Civilian agencies, we are seeking to expand our capabilities in cloud development and footprint in national-security focused agencies within the Department of Defense and U.S. Intelligence Community. We are seeking to hire a Senior Quality Assurance Engineer to our team! Client: CTEC develops and delivers innovative customer-centric technologies and solutions that support the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) Health and Insurance business unit and Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO). Duties and Responsibilities: Test Strategy & Planning: Lead the design and execution of comprehensive test strategies, test plans, and test frameworks to ensure software quality across enterprise systems and data-driven applications. Requirements & User Story Validation: Partner with business analysts, product owners, and developers to ensure requirements are testable, define acceptance criteria, and maintain end-to-end traceability using Azure DevOps. Test Execution Oversight: Lead manual and automated testing activities, ensuring adequate test coverage across functional, integration, system, regression, and user acceptance testing. Defect Management & Governance: Oversee defect lifecycle management using Azure DevOps, ensuring accurate documentation, prioritization, root-cause analysis, and resolution verification. Test Automation Leadership: Design, implement, and maintain scalable automated test frameworks and regression suites to improve testing efficiency and support continuous integration pipelines. Accessibility & 508 Compliance Leadership: Lead Section 508 and accessibility compliance testing using tools such as ANDI, Color Contrast Checker, CommonLook, and similar evaluation tools to ensure applications meet federal accessibility requirements. Performance & Non-Functional Testing: Plan and oversee performance, load, and integration testing to validate system scalability, stability, and reliability. Release Readiness & Quality Reporting: Provide quality status reporting, risk assessments, and release readiness recommendations to project leadership and stakeholders. Agile Participation & Quality Advocacy: Serve as a quality advocate within Agile/Scrum teams, participating in sprint planning, daily standups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives. Mentorship & Team Leadership: Mentor mid-level and junior QA staff, establish QA best practices, and support continuous improvement of testing processes and standards. Continuous Process Improvement: Identify and implement improvements to QA methodologies, automation practices, and toolchains. Works under minimal supervision with minor guidance from senior personnel. Skills & Work Experience: Professional Experience: At least seven (7–10+) years of experience in software quality assurance, testing, or test engineering roles, including leadership responsibilities. Proven experience developing enterprise-level test strategies, test plans, and automated testing frameworks. Strong experience with test automation tools and frameworks such as Selenium, JUnit, TestNG, or similar. Extensive experience using Azure DevOps for test case management, defect tracking, backlog alignment, sprint workflows, and traceability. Strong understanding of SDLC methodologies including Agile and Waterfall. Hands-on experience leading Section 508 / accessibility compliance testing using tools such as ANDI, Color Contrast Checker, CommonLook, or similar. Experience leading performance and integration testing activities. Strong analytical, problem-solving, and root-cause analysis skills. Experience working closely with developers, architects, business analysts, and project managers. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including executive-level reporting. Preferred: Experience supporting U.S. federal government IT systems or modernization programs. Experience integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines. Experience testing cloud-hosted and data-driven applications. Experience establishing QA standards, governance models, and testing centers of excellence. Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related discipline. Equivalent professional experience will be considered in lieu of a degree. Clearance: Must be a U.S. citizen and be able to obtain a Public Trust clearance. If you are looking for a fun and challenging environment with talented, motivated people to work with, CTEC is the right place for you. In addition to employee salary, we offer an array of employee benefits including: Paid vacation & Sick leave Health insurance coverage Career training Performance bonus programs 401K contribution & Employer Match 11 Federal Holidays