Software Quality Assurance Engineer

DEKA Research and Development; Manchester (NH); On-site; USD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

DEKA Research & Development is seeking a Software Quality Assurance Engineer to join our cloud engineering team. This individual-contributor role emphasizes automation-first quality, regulatory alignment, and scalable documentation that supports fast, compliant software releases.

You will embed with cross-functional teams to codify templates, write SDP/SRS/SDD, and manage change control, traceability, and audit-ready evidence.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a closely related technical discipline.
• 5–8 years of combined experience in software quality engineering or related roles, with 2+ years in FDA-regulated environments.
• Ability to read and reason about Go, Java, or Python code and IaC tools.
• Experience creating IEC 62304-compliant documentation and risk analyses.

Responsibilities

• Embed with engineering teams to standardize documentation practices and SOPs across cloud-native product lines.
• Author and own SDPs, SRSs, SDDs, verification plans, and risk management files.
• Lead document change control and maintain traceability matrices.
• Own the documentation project plan and coordinate release-ready reviews.
• Drive readiness reviews before design freeze, tests, and regulatory milestones.

Skills

Automation

Documentation

Go

Python

Playwright

pytest

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a closely related technical discipline

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

IEC 62304

ISO 14971

Job description

DEKA Research & Development is looking for a technically deep, process-driven Software Quality Assurance Engineer to join our cloud engineering team. This is an individual contributor role with outsized organizational impact: you will work alongside cloud-native engineering teams to learn how they work, codify documentation best practices, and scale those practices across teams building similar products. Additionally, you will champion automation-first, DevSecOps‑oriented quality practices to build the documentation and process infrastructure that allows developers to focus on writing great product code – not wrestling with regulatory paperwork. This role does not manage people, it leads through technical credibility, persuasion, and partnership.

What you will do as a Software Quality Assurance Engineer:

• Embed with engineering teams to understand existing documentation practices and automation tools for software design, V&V activities, and change control, then produce standardized templates, work instructions, and SOPs that can be applied consistently across teams with similar cloud‑native product lines.
• Serve as the primary author and owner of software lifecycle documentation artifacts including Software Development Plans (SDPs), Software Requirements Specifications (SRS), Software Design Documents (SDD), Verification & Validation Plans and Reports, and Software Risk Management Files
• Drive document change control processes from initiation through approval, coordinating review cycles to keep releases on schedule.
• Establish and maintain traceability matrices linking software requirements, design elements, risk controls, test cases, and defects, ensuring end-to-end objective evidence is audit‑ready at any point in the release cycle.
• Own the documentation project plan for each software release, tracking open documentation tasks, review cycles, and approval gates as a parallel workstream to the engineering release schedule.
• Facilitate documentation readiness reviews prior to design freeze, test execution, and regulatory submission milestones. Communicate readiness status to engineering leads; escalation blockers early and drive resolution.

To succeed as a Software Quality Assurance Engineer, you will need the following experience and skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a closely related technical discipline required.
  • Advanced degree or professional certifications (ASQ CSQE, ISTQB, RAC) a plus but not required in lieu of demonstrated experience.
• 5–8 years of combined experience in software quality engineering, software development, or a closely adjacent technical role, with at least 2 years in an FDA-regulated environment (medical devices, digital health, or pharmaceutical software).
• Hands‑on software development background – you must be able to read and reason about Go, Java or Python code, Infrastructure‑as‑Code (Terraform, Ansible), and automated test code (Playwright, pytest) without requiring a developer to walk you through it.
• Demonstrated experience producing IEC 62304‑compliant documentation for Class B or Class C software.
• Practical knowledge of ISO 14971 risk management methodology as applied to medical device software; experience authoring or materially contributing to FMEAs and software hazard analyses.
• Working knowledge of FDA cybersecurity expectations for medical devices, including familiarity with NIST frameworks and the ability to assess cloud‑hosted systems against those standards.
• Familiarity with cloud‑native architectures (microservice and event‑driven architectures at scale, networking, IAM) sufficient to understand system design documents and workflows.
• Direct experience writing automated tests in Python or Go, or using Playwright for UI/E2E test automation.

The ideal candidate:

• You default to automation and repeatability over manual processes, and you can articulate why that matters for regulatory defensibility, not just engineering velocity.
• You are a skilled communicator who can translate between regulatory language and engineering language – equally comfortable in a design review with a Go developer and a regulatory affairs meeting.
• You take documentation quality as seriously as software quality: clarity, precision, version control, and traceability are not overhead to you, they are the work.
• You are comfortable working independently across multiple teams, managing your own priorities, and driving cross‑functional coordination without formal authority.

About DEKA:

One hour from the beach, Boston, and the mountains, the historic Amoskeag Millyard once housed the largest textile mills in the world. It is now home to DEKA Research & Development, where we are taking the same innovation and cutting‑edge technology into the modern age.

Behind DEKA's brick walls sits a team of professionals who strive to make a difference every day through thoughtful engineering, design, and manufacturing. Here at DEKA, some of the most innovative and life‑changing products of our time are created, and new ideas are always welcome and explored.