Quality Assurance System Tester

Guidehouse Inc.; McLean (VA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Guidehouse Inc. is seeking a Quality Assurance and Test Automation Lead to drive QA strategy, implement a robust automated testing framework, and mature testing practices across a large-scale GrantSolutions platform modernization.

You will mentor QA teams, collaborate with product owners, developers, data teams, and security teams, and ensure reliable, secure, and data‑consistent releases across complex environments.

Qualifications

• Must be able to OBTAIN and MAINTAIN a Federal or DoD Public Trust adjudication prior to onboarding with Guidehouse.
• Bachelor's degree required.
• 6–8 years in QA, system testing, software testing, test automation or related roles, including leading QA/test automation.
• Hands-on in designing and executing manual test cases for system, regression, and integration testing.

Responsibilities

• Lead QA strategy and automation framework implementation for large-scale modernization.
• Define testing standards and reusable automation patterns across application, API, data, and UI testing.
• Mentor QA resources and coordinate with delivery teams and stakeholders to improve quality.
• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines and drive test execution and reporting.
• Provide release readiness insights and quality metrics to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Skills

Quality assurance

Test automation

CI/CD

Automation framework

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

Job Family :

Testing

Travel Required :

None

Clearance Required :

Ability to Obtain Public Trust

Job Description Summary

The Quality Assurance and Test Automation Lead will support a large-scale agile software development and platform modernization program supporting the GrantSolutions contract. This role will lead quality assurance strategy and execution while also standing up, implementing, and maturing the program's automated test framework. The lead will define testing standards, establish reusable automation patterns, guide test coverage across application, API, integration, data, regression, and user acceptance testing, and work closely with Product Owners, Scrum Masters, developers, integration engineers, data teams, vendors, security teams, and Federal stakeholders to improve release confidence and reduce production risk.

What You Will Do :

We are seeking a Quality Assurance and Test Automation Lead with strong hands-on experience in quality engineering, manual and automated testing, and test framework implementation to support a large-scale GrantSolutions platform modernization effort. This role will provide day-to-day QA leadership, establish the automation foundation, and ensure new and enhanced capabilities are reliable, secure, accessible, data-consistent, and ready for production release across complex application, API, data integration, and legacy system environments.

The Quality Assurance and Test Automation Lead will define test approaches, review and improve test artifacts, guide test execution, document and triage defects, verify fixes, and develop an automation framework that supports repeatable regression testing within the CI/CD process. This individual will mentor QA resources, coordinate with delivery teams, strengthen quality practices, improve test efficiency, and provide clear quality metrics and release readiness insights to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Plan, design, execute, and document system, regression, smoke, integration, API, data validation, and user acceptance testing for a large-scale platform modernization program delivered through agile execution.

Stand up and mature the automated test framework, including tool selection support, framework architecture, coding standards, reusable libraries, test data strategy, execution patterns, reporting, and maintenance practices.

Analyze user stories, acceptance criteria, business rules, interface specifications, API contracts, data mappings, and technical design documentation to define complete and traceable test coverage.

Perform end-to-end testing across modernized application components, legacy system touchpoints, APIs, integrations, workflows, reports, data exchanges, and security-related access paths.

Support API and integration testing by validating request and response behavior, error handling, data transformation logic, authentication or authorization behavior, and downstream processing outcomes.

Document defects clearly with reproducible steps, expected and actual results, test evidence, severity, priority, environment details, and supporting screenshots or logs when appropriate.

Work closely with developers, integration engineers, data teams, Product Owners, Scrum Masters, vendors, and security teams to triage defects, verify fixes, clarify requirements, and support release readiness decisions.

Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines where appropriate and lead automated test execution, results review, failure analysis, reporting, environment coordination, and continuous framework improvement.

Provide QA leadership across modernization workstreams by mentoring testers, reviewing test cases and automation scripts, promoting consistent standards, coordinating cross-team test dependencies, and communicating quality risks and readiness recommendations.

Establish quality metrics and dashboards, including automation coverage, regression pass rates, defect trends, escaped defects, blocked tests, test execution progress, and release readiness indicators.

Support accessibility, security, performance, data quality, and operational readiness testing in coordination with specialized teams and approved program standards.

Contribute to continuous improvement of QA processes, test automation frameworks, defect management practices, test documentation, and release quality metrics.

What You Will Need :

Must be able to OBTAIN and MAINTAIN a Federal or DoD "PUBLIC TRUST"; candidates must obtain approved adjudication of their PUBLIC TRUST prior to onboarding with Guidehouse. Candidates with an ACTIVE PUBLIC TRUST or SUITABILITY are preferred.

Bachelor's degree required.

Minimum of Six (6) to Eight (8) years of experience in quality assurance, system testing, software testing, test automation, quality engineering, or related technical roles, including experience leading QA activities or test automation efforts.

Hands-on experience designing, executing, and documenting manual test cases for system, regression, integratio