Senior Automation & Functional Tester — Remote

PlanIT Group; Reston (VA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

PlanIT Group in Reston, VA seeks a Senior Functional and Automated Tester with 13+ years of experience. You will design, execute, and lead automated testing across cloud-native and API-driven applications, aligning with DevSecOps and QA standards.

You will improve testing strategies, enable CI/CD, and ensure robust security and performance validation. You will collaborate with product and engineering to validate complex distributed workflows, include Kafka-based messaging, and deliver

Qualifications

• 13+ years in software development/QA/testing
• Must be able to work independently on high visibility programs
• Experience mentoring staff and leading testing efforts
• Extensive experience with software testing documentation and defect reporting
• Strong communication with technical and non-technical audiences

Responsibilities

• Lead project planning, identify scope, risks, environments, data needs, and tooling for delivery timelines
• Translate requirements into test strategies and detailed test cases across functional, integration, regression, performance, and security areas
• Design and build automated tests (unit, API, integration, UI) for CI/CD pipelines
• Perform hands-on functional testing, validate edge cases and data handling
• Validate event-driven systems (Kafka) and distributed workflows
• Test API-centric architectures (microservices/serverless) and contract validation
• Collaborate with DevSecOps and engineering to enforce secure development practices
• Coordinate test environments, deployments, and release readiness
• Document test evidence, defects, dashboards, and runbooks for leadership/audit
• Drive defect triage and root cause analysis, promote quality controls
• Support observability validation and performance baselines
• Leverage AI-assisted testing tools within governance guidelines
• Perform other duties to support delivery and operations

Skills

Functional testing

Test automation

Test strategy

CI/CD

Security testing

Kafka

APIs/microservices

Cloud data pipelines

Observability

Programming languages

Performance testing

Communication

Education

B.S. in Software Engineering or Computer Science

Tools

GitLab

Jenkins

Docker

Kubernetes

Kafka tooling

Job description

PlanIT Group in Reston, VA seeks a Senior Functional and Automated Tester with 13+ years of experience. You will design, execute, and lead automated testing across cloud-native and API-driven applications, aligning with DevSecOps and QA standards.

You will improve testing strategies, enable CI/CD, and ensure robust security and performance validation. You will collaborate with product and engineering to validate complex distributed workflows, include Kafka-based messaging, and deliver