Quality Assurance Manager

ISF, Inc.; United States; On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

ISF, Inc. is seeking a hands-on QA Manager to own quality across the product delivery lifecycle. You will build and run the test strategy, manage a small QA team, and embed quality practices directly into how engineering plans, builds, and releases.

You will lead from the front, pilot new techniques and automation before rolling them out to the team, and partner with development, product, and security to ensure the platform meets functional and performance expectations in a DoD context.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading QA for software products in an Agile environment.
• Hands-on with test automation frameworks and API testing tools.
• Experience defining QA processes and quality metrics from the ground up.
• Experience managing distributed or vendor-sourced team members.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the overall QA strategy, standards, and test coverage model.
• Embed QA into sprint planning, backlog refinement, and definition of done.
• Build and maintain automated test suites (UI, API, and regression).
• Pilot emerging QA practices and tooling, including AI-assisted testing.

Skills

QA leadership

Test automation

Playwright

Selenium

Cypress

Postman

REST Assured

Azure DevOps

CI/CD integration

AI-assisted testing

Tools

Playwright

Selenium

Cypress

Postman

REST Assured

Azure DevOps

Job description

We are seeking a hands-on QA Manager to own quality across our product delivery lifecycle. This role blends execution with leadership. You will build and run the test strategy, manage a small QA team, and embed quality practices directly into how engineering plans, builds, and releases.

We're looking for someone detail-oriented enough to catch what others miss, but not rigid about how the work gets done. You're comfortable trying new tools and approaches, and you let data and results guide the call rather than habit or process for its own sake. You'll lead from the front, personally piloting new techniques and automation before rolling them out to the team.

You will play a critical role in raising release confidence and reducing escaped defects, while partnering closely with development, product, and security teams to ensure the platform meets functional and performance expectations. This role also supports our efforts operating in a secure DoD environment, helping drive the testing rigor and documentation needed as we pursue our Authority to Operate (ATO).

Responsibilities

• Define and own the overall QA strategy, standards, and test coverage model
• Establish entry and exit criteria for testing at each stage of the release cycle
• Embed QA into sprint planning, backlog refinement, and definition of done
• Personally evaluate and pilot emerging QA practices and tooling (including AI-assisted testing), proving them out hands-on before rolling them out to the team.

Test Planning & Execution

• Own test plans, test cases, and traceability to requirements and acceptance criteria
• Coordinate functional, regression, integration, and UAT cycles
• Manage defect triage, prioritization, and tracking through closure

Test Automation & Tooling

• Build and maintain automated test suites (UI, API, and regression)
• Integrate automated testing into CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps preferred)
• Own and evolve QA tooling stack, including hands-on selection, setup, and standardization of test management, automation, and reporting tools as needs grow.

Quality Metrics & Reporting

• Define and report on quality metrics:
• Defect escape rate and reopen rate
• Test and automation coverage
• Release readiness and cycle time
• Provide clear, timely release readiness assessments to stakeholders
• Ensure QA status and blockers are communicated proactively

Security & Compliance

• Partner with the Security team to ensure security controls are testable and tested
• Maintain audit-ready test evidence and documentation
• Support compliance requirements through repeatable, documented QA processes

Cross-functional Collaboration

• Work closely with development teams to shift testing earlier in the cycle
• Partner with product teams to clarify acceptance criteria before work begins
• Coordinate with DevOps/cloud engineers on environment readiness, test data, and deployment validation
• Identify and raise risks during planning based on data from test results and bugs.
• Manage, coach, and develop a nearshore, English-speaking QA team sourced through a staffing partner, including ramping new team members quickly and keeping test coverage and knowledge continuous if the vendor rotates staff
• Set clear expectations, workload priorities, and performance goals
• Grow QA capability through hiring, onboarding, and skills development
• Lead by example, writing and maintaining automation alongside the team, partnering with them on hard testing problems, and modeling the practices you want adopted

Qualifications

Required

• Proven experience leading QA for software products in an Agile environment
• Hands-on experience with:
• Test automation frameworks (Playwright, Selenium, Cypress, or similar)
• API testing (Postman, REST Assured, or similar)
• Strong understanding of:
• CI/CD pipelines and automated test integration (Azure DevOps or similar)
• Test management and defect tracking tools (Azure DevOps or similar)
• Experience defining QA processes and quality metrics from the ground up
• Demonstrated ability to manage and develop a QA team
• Experience leveraging AI-assisted testing tools (test generation, self-healing automation, or AI-driven defect prioritization)
• Experience managing distributed or vendor-sourced team members, including performance management within a staffing-partner relationship rather than direct employment

Nice to Have

• Experience in regulated environments (GovCloud / GCC High)
• Experience with performance and load testing
• Familiarity with accessibility testing (Section 508 / WCAG)

What Success Looks Like

• Predictable release cycles with clearly defined, consistently applied quality gates
• Automated regression coverage running on every build with minimal manual effort
• Measurable reduction in escaped defects and reopened tickets
• QA risks and blockers surfaced early, with no late-stage release surprises
• Clear collaboration between QA, development, product, and security teams