QA Automation / UAT & Performance Engineer

Hello All,

Hope you are doing well

Position: QA Automation / UAT & Performance Engineer

Experience: 7+ years in QA; strong experience in API/data automation and performance testing Location: Richmond, VA Hybrid / Onsite as required

Duration: Approximately 8 months

Work Authorization: U.S.-based resources only

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.