QA Specialist (Technical Support)

Sabenza IT & Recruitment; South Africa; On-site; ZAR 350,000 - 550,000; Full time

Job summary

Sabenza IT & Recruitment seeks a QA Specialist (Technical Support) to investigate issues in live and test environments, document defects with clear evidence, and ensure data and behavior are correct across systems. Strong troubleshooting and SQL validation will be essential in this role.

You will run manual tests, support automated tests and UAT cycles, work with developers and infrastructure teams, and validate fixes before closure, contributing to robust releases.

Qualifications

• 5 years’ experience in technical support and/or QA inside a software development environment.
• SQL and relational databases.
• Linux/Unix, including SSH.
• Manual testing.
• Functional and regression testing.
• UAT participation or coordination.
• Test case creation and execution.
• Defect identification and reporting.
• Data validation.
• Understanding of dev/test/prod environments.

Responsibilities

• Investigate application issues using logs, queries and environment checks.
• Perform OS-level troubleshooting on Linux/Unix via SSH.
• Verify data state across databases and trace transactions.
• Create, maintain and execute test cases for functional/regression/UAT.
• Run manual tests against requirements and release notes; record evidence.
• Support automated tests and distinguish environment issues from defects.
• Log defects with steps, data, logs and expected results.
• Validate data before and after changes or migrations.
• Support UAT: prepare data, guide users and track retests.
• Collaborate with developers and infra teams to isolate fault cause.

Skills

SQL

Linux/Unix

Manual testing

UAT coordination

Test case creation

Defect reporting

Data validation

Problem solving

Tools

ELK Stack

Azure Monitor

Postman

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

We are seeking a QA Specialist (Technical Support) to investigate application issues in live and test environments, then supports manual testing, automated testing and user acceptance testing. The purpose is to find, reproduce and document defects early, validate that data and behaviour are correct, and give clear technical evidence when an issue needs a developer or infrastructure fix.

Key responsibilities

• Investigate application issues using logs, database queries, configuration and environment checks.
• Work in Linux/Unix over SSH for basic OS-level troubleshooting: process, disk, permission, connectivity and service checks.
• Query relational databases to confirm data state, trace transactions and validate expected versus actual results.
• Create, maintain and execute test cases for functional, regression and UAT cycles.
• Run manual tests against agreed requirements and release notes, and record evidence.
• Support automated test runs, review failures and separate environment issues from product defects.
• Identify, reproduce and log defects with steps, data, logs, screenshots and expected results.
• Validate data before and after changes, migrations and fixes.
• Support UAT: prepare data, guide users, capture findings and track retests.
• Work with developers and infrastructure teams to isolate whether a fault sits in the application, data, integration or platform.
• Check monitoring and alerting output where available, and elevate with a clear impact and timeline.
• Confirm fixes in the correct environment before a defect is closed.
• Maintain test evidence, known-issue notes and handover comments for releases.

Requirements

• 5 years’ experience in technical support and/or QA inside a software development environment.
• Application log investigation.
• SQL and relational databases.
• Linux/Unix, including SSH.
• Basic OS-level troubleshooting.
• Manual testing.
• Functional and regression testing.
• UAT participation or coordination.
• Test case creation and execution.
• Defect identification and reporting.
• Data validation.
• A working understanding of software development environments, releases and environments such as dev, test and production.
• Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving, with a habit of proving the cause rather than guessing.

Advantageous

• ELK Stack or similar log search.
• Azure Monitor and broader Azure exposure.
• API testing, including Postman.
• Automated testing.
• CI/CD pipelines.
• Java or other application troubleshooting.
• Database troubleshooting beyond basic selects: locks, bad data, failed jobs.
• DevOps exposure.
• Monitoring tools.
• Experience working day to day with developers and infrastructure teams.