QA / Security Test Engineer

Alexander Technology Group; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Alexander Technology Group in Boston, MA is seeking a senior QA Lead for a large-scale Azure Cloud Migration. You will lead end-to-end testing and validation for infrastructure and applications, ensuring readiness for production with a focus on data and functional validation.

The role requires strong QA leadership, migration testing experience, and coordination across cross-functional teams to ensure successful cutover and hypercare with auditable evidence and Go/No-Go readiness.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of QA/testing experience with data center or cloud migrations.
• Experience defining test strategies, plans and migration validation checklists.
• Strong defect management and Go/No-Go criteria knowledge.

Responsibilities

• Lead QA readiness input into Go/No-Go decisions.
• Define migration test strategy and wave-level test plans.
• Coordinate with application owners and infrastructure teams for validation.
• Develop reusable migration validation checklists and dashboards.

Skills

QA Leadership

Migration testing

SQL

Test planning

Stakeholder coordination

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related

Tools

Azure DevOps

Jira

ALM

PowerShell

Job description

• Post-cutover validation
• Authentication/SSO.
• Validate schema/object counts.

QA – Azure Cloud Migration

Role Summary

We are seeking an experienced QA / Test Lead – Data Center Migration to lead testing and quality assurance activities for a large-scale infrastructure and application migration program.

The QA Lead will be responsible for defining and executing the end-to-end migration validation strategy covering Discovery, Assessment, Migration Readiness, Migration Execution, Functional/Technical Validation, Cutover and Hypercare.

The role requires strong experience in validating infrastructure and application migrations involving servers, databases, applications, middleware, interfaces, batch jobs, network connectivity, security controls and dependent systems.

The QA Lead will work closely with Migration Leads, Application Owners, Infrastructure Teams, Database Teams, Network/Security Teams, Business SMEs and Operations teams to ensure that migrated workloads are technically and functionally validated before production acceptance.

Key Responsibilities

The QA Lead will provide QA readiness input into the Go/No-Go decision.

• Discovery & Assessment
• Review application and infrastructure inventory generated during discovery.
• Validate completeness of servers, applications, databases, middleware, interfaces and dependencies.
• Review CMDB/discovery information and identify discrepancies.
• Validate application-to-server, application-to-database and application-to-interface dependencies.
• Identify critical upstream/downstream dependencies that need validation after migration.
• Participate in application assessment workshops with application and infrastructure owners.
• Define testing requirements based on application criticality and migration approach.
• Identify applications requiring functional, integration, regression, performance or business validation.
• Establish baseline configuration and performance metrics before migration.
• Identify test-data, environment and access requirements.
• Test Strategy & Planning
• Develop the overall DCM Migration Test Strategy and Test Plan.
• Define testing scope for each migration wave.
• Define Entry/Exit criteria for migration testing.
• Define validation approach for different migration patterns such as Rehost, Replatform and Refactor.
• Establish test phases including:
  • Pre-migration validation
  • Infrastructure validation
  • Application smoke testing
  • Functional validation
  • Integration testing
  • Database/data validation
  • Batch/interface validation
  • Performance validation
  • Security/connectivity validation
  • Business validation/UAT
  • Post-cutover validation
• Define defect severity and prioritization criteria.
• Establish defect triage and reporting process.
• Define rollback criteria from a QA/testing perspective.
• Create reusable migration validation checklists and templates.
• Migration Readiness Before workloads are approved for migration, the QA Lead will verify:
  • Test cases are documented and approved.
  • Application owners and testers are identified.
  • Test accounts and credentials are available.
  • Required test data is available.
  • Source environment baseline has been captured.
  • Application dependencies are documented.
  • URLs, ports, firewall rules and connectivity requirements are documented.
  • Database connectivity requirements are validated.
  • Batch jobs and interfaces are identified.
  • Monitoring requirements are established.
  • Business validation/UAT resources are confirmed.
  • Testing schedule aligns with the migration/cutover plan.
  • Exit criteria and rollback conditions are agreed.

Pre-Migration Validation

• Execute application health checks.
• Validate existing production functionality.
• Capture baseline response times and performance metrics where applicable.
• Validate server/application/database availability.
• Record expected interface and batch-processing behavior.
• Validate key business transactions.
• Capture baseline database record counts/checksums where required.
• Document existing defects to differentiate them from migration-induced defects.

Migration & Technical Validation

• Immediately After Migration, Coordinate And Execute Technical Validation Including:
  • Server availability and accessibility.
  • OS/service status.
  • Application/service startup.
  • Database availability and connectivity.
  • Middleware/service connectivity.
  • DNS resolution.
  • Load balancer functionality.
  • Firewall/port connectivity.
  • Authentication and authorization.
  • Service accounts.
  • Certificates.
  • File shares.
  • Storage mounts.
  • Scheduled jobs.
  • Batch jobs.
  • API/interface connectivity.
  • Monitoring and alerting.
  • Backup configuration.
  • Logging.
  • Application URLs/endpoints.
• Application & Business Validation
  • Coordinate With Application Owners And Business SMEs To Validate:
    • Application login.
    • Critical business transactions.
    • CRUD operations where applicable.
    • Application workflows.
    • Reports.
    • Interfaces.
    • APIs.
    • File transfers.
    • Batch processes.
    • Notifications.
    • Authentication/SSO.
    • Role-based access.
    • Database updates.
    • Upstream/downstream integrations.
  • Ensure evidence is captured for all critical validation scenarios.
• Data & Database Validation
  • Where Databases Are Migrated:
    • Validate schema/object counts.
    • Compare source and target record counts.
    • Validate critical tables.
    • Perform reconciliation.
    • Validate stored procedures/views/functions.
    • Validate database connectivity.
    • Validate application-to-database connectivity.
    • Validate scheduled database jobs.
    • Identify data discrepancies and coordinate remediation.
    • Validate data consistency following final synchronization.
• Cutover Support
  • During Migration Cutover:
    • Participate in the migration command center/war room.
    • Track validation activities against the cutover runbook.
    • Coordinate testing teams.
    • Monitor test execution.
    • Track blockers and defects.
    • Conduct rapid defect triage.
    • Provide testing status to the Cutover Manager.
    • Confirm completion of critical validation.
    • Assess outstanding defects against agreed exit criteria.
    • Provide QA readiness recommendation for Go/No-Go discussions.
    • Ensure validation evidence and approvals are captured.
• Hypercare
  • Following Production Migration:
    • Perform extended production validation.
    • Monitor migration-related incidents.
    • Track defects identified after cutover.
    • Differentiate migration defects from pre-existing application defects.
    • Coordinate retesting after fixes.
    • Monitor batch cycles and scheduled jobs.
    • Validate interfaces after normal business processing resumes.
    • Support business/application teams during hypercare.
    • Track defect trends and recurring issues.
    • Confirm exit criteria for hypercare.
    • Support transition to BAU/Operations.
• Test Governance & Reporting
  • Maintain QA Metrics And Dashboards Including:
    • Applications planned vs tested.
    • Test cases planned/executed/passed/failed.
    • First-pass success rate.
    • Defects by severity.
    • Open critical/high defects.
    • Defect aging.
    • Defect leakage into production.
    • Migration validation completion percentage.
    • Applications cleared/not cleared for cutover.
    • Post-migration incidents.
    • Hypercare defect trends.

Required Experience

• 7+ years of QA/testing experience with experience in infrastructure/application migration programs.
• Strong experience with Data Center, Cloud or Infrastructure migration testing.
• Experience testing applications migrated across infrastructure environments.
• Understanding of servers, databases, networking, DNS, firewalls, load balancers and storage.
• Experience validating APIs, interfaces, batch jobs and application integrations.
• Strong SQL/database validation skills.
• Experience with test management and defect management tools such as Azure DevOps, Jira, ALM or similar.
• Experience creating test strategies, test plans, test cases and migration validation checklists.
• Experience coordinating application owners, infrastructure teams and business testers.
• Experience supporting production cutovers and command-center/war-room activities.
• Strong understanding of defect management, severity classification and Go/No-Go criteria.

Preferred Skills

• Azure/AWS migration experience.
• Experience with Azure Migrate or similar discovery/migration tools.
• Understanding of VMware/virtualized environments.
• Experience with automation tools such as Selenium, Postman, PowerShell or Python.
• Experience with database migration and reconciliation.
• Knowledge of monitoring tools such as Datadog, Splunk, Dynatrace, Azure Monitor or similar.
• Experience working on large migration factories involving multiple migration waves.

Key Deliverables

The QA Lead Will Be Accountable For:

• Migration Test Strategy
• Wave-level Test Plan
• Application Test Matrix
• Pre-Migration Validation Checklist
• Post-Migration Validation Checklist
• Test Cases/Test Scripts
• Dependency Validation Matrix
• Test Execution Dashboard
• Defect Dashboard
• Cutover Validation Checklist
• QA Go/No-Go Assessment
• Hypercare Validation Report
• Migration QA Closure Report

Required Experience

• 8+ years of QA/testing experience, with demonstrated experience in data center or cloud migration projects (on-prem to Azure preferred).
• Experience testing infrastructure/security tooling migrations is a strong plus (firewalls, PAM/CyberArk, SIEM/or DataDog).
• Experience in a regulated industry (healthcare, HIPAA/HITRUST, or similar) preferred.
• Familiarity with test automation frameworks and tools.
• Strong defect management and test documentation discipline.
• Excellent communication skills for cross-functional and stakeholder coordination.

Nice to Have

• Azure cloud certification or hands-on Azure environment testing experience.
• Experience working within a formal program governance structure (CAB, security review boards, etc.).