QA Automation / UAT & Performance Engineer

Hello Associates,

Position: QA Automation / UAT & Performance Engineer

Location: Richmond, VA (Hybrid - 2 Days per week Onsite)

Duration: 8+ Months

Job Description:

Primary Value:

Traceable testing, automation, performance, UAT acceptance

Experience:

7+ years in QA; strong experience in API/data automation and performance testing

Role Purpose

• Provide end-to-end quality ownership for a data-intensive application whose final acceptance is UAT-based. This role combines automation, API/data validation, functional testing, regression, UAT preparation, performance testing, and release readiness so the team does not need separate manual QA, automation, and performance resources.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop the master test strategy covering functional, API, integration, data, migration, security/authorization, regression, performance/load, and UAT support.
• Build and maintain requirement-to-test traceability using the SOR requirement IDs and the validated requirements baseline.
• Design test cases for each upload template, reporting reason, validation rule, duplicate scenario, staged approval, edit/retransform path, inspection/lifecycle function, role/organization access rule, search/report/export feature, and administration capability.
• Automate high-value regression at the API/service layer and selected UI workflows; integrate automated tests into the team GitLab CI/CD pipeline where practical.
• Perform database/data reconciliation testing across source upload, import, transformed, migrated, XML/submission and reporting outputs.
• Validate NEIEN/XML against schemas and expected business outcomes; verify error handling maps failures back to the correct record/field.
• Test CGP, TMDL IP/CEDS, OLAP, DCR/VACS and local-government integrations using real endpoints where available and mocks/stubs when necessary.
• Coordinate GIS-related test cases with the GIS specialist for boundary conditions, coordinate validity, locality/HUC derivation, and spatial mismatch scenarios.
• Design and execute load/performance tests for large uploads, asynchronous processing, search/export, APIs and expected concurrent provider activity; document thresholds, bottlenecks, tuning actions and retest results.
• Develop the UAT plan, acceptance checklist, test-data guidance and defect triage process with the Lead BA and DEQ; support UAT execution and evidence collection.
• Own defect lifecycle and release-quality dashboards; perform regression and readiness validation before each milestone release and go-live.

Minimum / Required Profile for Sourcing

• 7+ years of QA/test engineering for enterprise web/data applications.
• Strong API testing experience and ability to validate REST services independently of the UI.
• Strong SQL/data-testing skills for reconciliation, rule verification, migration validation, and troubleshooting.
• Experience building maintainable automated regression suites using modern test frameworks.
• Experience with performance/load testing for web APIs, file uploads, background jobs, or data-intensive applications.
• Experience designing UAT plans, acceptance checklists, traceability, defect triage, and release-readiness evidence.
• Ability to test XML/schema-based integrations and complex business-rule combinations.

Preferred Skills

• Experience with Playwright/Cypress or equivalent UI automation, Postman/Newman/REST-assured or equivalent API testing, and k6/JMeter/Gatling or similar performance tooling.
• Experience with GIS/spatial-data testing and regulatory reporting systems.
• Experience embedding tests into GitLab CI/CD.