Senior QA Engineer

Aderant Holdings, Inc.; Auckland; On-site; NZD 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Aderant is seeking a Senior QA Engineer to lead a shift-left quality model within an Agile team. You will define acceptance criteria with BAs and developers, design tests for high-risk functionality, and mentor peers on testing practices.

The ideal candidate has hands-on QA experience, a track record shaping test strategy, and familiarity with Azure DevOps and UI automation (Playwright). Experience testing financial or ERP software is a strong plus.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software QA with growth from execution to strategy.
• Experience testing financial/ERP software such as General Ledger is a strong plus.
• Proven experience defining or leading a QA process, test strategy, or quality standards.
• Experience driving a shift-left model where engineers own testing and automation.
• Strong exploratory/manual testing skills with judgement on value of human testing.
• Familiarity with test design techniques like cause-effect graphing and boundary value analysis.
• Strong review/audit skills for test cases and coverage.
• Comfort influencing others rather than direct control.

Responsibilities

• Act as the quality champion within the Scrum team, embedding quality thinking throughout the development process.
• Define acceptance criteria for user stories and client-raised issues with BAs and developers.
• Shift focus from tester to test designer and quality coach, guiding testing approaches.
• Design manual and exploratory tests while encouraging automation through unit/integration/API/UI tests.
• Promote advanced testing techniques across the team.
• Peer-review test plans and focus testing on high-risk, customer-facing functionality.
• Collaborate with developers to ensure automation coverage and identify gaps.
• Communicate documentation needs to the technical writer.

Skills

QA Engineer

Shift-left

Test automation

Azure DevOps

Playwright

Tools

Playwright

Job description

Aderant is a global industry leading software company providing comprehensive business management solutions for law firms and other professional services organizations with a mission to help them run a better business. We are motivated by a collective desire to drive the legal industry to the forefront of innovation. With over 2,500 clients around the world, including 95 of the top AmLaw 100 firms, we are changing the outside perception of the legal sphere; where there was once resistance to modernization, we are creating a culture that embraces new ideas and technology. At Aderant, the “A” is more than just a letter. It is a representation of how we fulfill our foundational purpose, serving our clients. It embodies our core values and reminds us that to achieve success, every day must start with the “A”. We bring the “A” to life by fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and personal growth. We encourage our diverse teams to bring their whole selves to work – ideas, experience, and passion – to drive our mission forward. Our people are our strength.

As a Senior QA Engineer, you will lead our shift toward a shift-left quality model, where developers take increasing ownership of test case creation and automation, while QA focuses on quality strategy, standards, and coaching. You will act as the quality champion within your Scrum team: defining acceptance criteria alongside BAs and developers, designing tests for the highest-risk and most complex functionality, and helping the team build quality into the development process rather than catching issues at the end. This role requires strong collaboration within an Agile team, sound judgment on where testing effort matters most, and the ability to coach engineers on the testing practices they will increasingly own themselves. The ideal candidate has hands‑on QA experience, a track record of shaping test strategy rather than only executing test cases, and a genuine belief in shift-left quality practices. Experience testing financial or accounting software, such as General Ledger, ERP, or billing systems, is a strong plus given our product domain.

Responsibilities

• Act as the quality champion within the Scrum team, embedding quality thinking throughout the development process.
• Define acceptance criteria for user stories and client-raised issues in collaboration with BAs and developers.
• Shift the focus from test executor to test designer and quality coach, guiding how the team approaches testing.
• Design manual and exploratory test cases where human judgment adds value, while encouraging appropriate automation through unit, integration, API, and UI tests.
• Promote advanced testing techniques, such as cause-effect graphing and equivalence partitioning, across the team.
• Peer-review test plans and focus personal testing effort on complex, high-risk, or customer-facing functionality.
• Collaborate with developers to ensure appropriate automation coverage and challenge gaps where automation falls short.
• Communicate documentation needs clearly to the technical writer.
• Review and audit developer-written test cases and developer-built automation to identify coverage gaps.

Qualifications What You Will Bring to the Role

• 5+ years of experience in software quality assurance, with demonstrated growth from test execution into test strategy or process ownership.
• Experience testing financial, accounting, or ERP software, such as General Ledger, is a strong plus.
• Proven experience defining or leading a QA process, test strategy, or quality standards for a team, rather than only executing an existing process.
• Experience working in, or actively driving a transition toward, a shift-left quality model where engineers own significant testing and automation responsibilities.
• Strong exploratory and manual testing skills, with sound judgment on where human testing adds the most value and where automation should carry the load.
• Familiarity with advanced test design techniques, such as cause-effect graphing, equivalence partitioning, and boundary value analysis.
• Strong review and audit skills, with the ability to critically assess others' test cases and automated coverage and identify what is missing.
• Comfort operating through influence and coaching rather than direct control.
• Experience with Azure DevOps (ADO) or similar work item and sprint tracking tools.
• Strong written communication skills for concise testing notes on pull requests and work items.
• Ability to work effectively in an environment with evolving processes and some ambiguity.
• Familiarity with Playwright or comparable UI automation frameworks.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions) is a plus.
• Experience mentoring or leading other QA engineers is a plus.

What Success Looks Like in This Role

Developers are writing solid test cases and building meaningful automated coverage, guided by your standards and review process. High-risk, complex, and customer-facing functionality receives the deepest testing attention, while lower-risk areas are covered efficiently through automation. Acceptance criteria are consistently well defined before development begins, reducing rework. The team has clear visibility into quality metrics and trends, not just anecdotal confidence. QA is seen as a strategic partner in the development process, not a bottleneck at the end.

Aderant is a global industry leading software company providing comprehensive business management solutions for law firms and other professional services organizations with a mission to help them run a better business. We are motivated by a collective desire to drive the legal industry to the forefront of innovation. With over 2,500 clients around the world, including 95 of the top AmLaw 100 firms, we are changing the outside perception of the legal sphere; where there was once resistance to modernization, we are creating a culture that embraces new ideas and technology. At Aderant, the “A” is more than just a letter. It is a representation of how we fulfill our foundational purpose, serving our clients. It embodies our core values and reminds us that to achieve success, every day must start with the “A”. We bring the “A” to life by fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and personal growth. We encourage our diverse teams to bring their whole selves to work – ideas, experience, and passion – to drive our mission forward. Our people are our strength.