The Role
At Agate Software, we are building a better world by revolutionizing how government agencies and nonprofits manage their grant processes. Our solutions empower our customers to maximize their resources, drive compliance, and focus on their core missions of distributing millions of dollars in funding for critical social services.
Our success is built on three pillars: Innovation, Integrity, and Impact. For over 20 years, Agate Software has been at the forefront of transformative innovation in the grant management industry. Our journey is marked by groundbreaking achievements and a commitment to pushing boundaries. By simplifying complex workflows, enhancing transparency, and turbo-charging efficiency, we enable our customers to maximize the impact of their funding.
Always challenging the status quo, we strive to set new industry standards and we are seeking the brightest minds to join us in this mission. If you're ready to apply your expertise in a dynamic, growth-oriented, mission-driven environment, read on to see how this position aligns with your skills and interests!
What We're Looking For
We’re looking for a hands-on, strategic Head of Quality Assurance to build and lead a culture of quality across a broad portfolio of government products and projects. In this role, you’ll go beyond “testing at the end” - you’ll embed quality from the first requirement through every release, driving best practices, creating scalable systems, and raising the bar for delivery excellence.
You will lead a small but high-impact QA team, collaborate with development, configuration, and product teams, and work cross-functionally to ensure quality is part of everyone’s job. The ideal candidate thrives in ambiguity, acts decisively, and knows how to scale both people and processes to support a growing, high-stakes portfolio.
What You'll Do
- Own the quality system end-to-end: standards, entry/exit criteria, and release readiness.
- Embed QA upstream: partner with BAs, PMs, engineers and related stakeholders to write clear acceptance criteria and prevent defects early.
- Train the org: coach non-QA roles (Config, Dev, PM) to adopt everyday QA practices; build simple templates and checklists that stick. Identify, deploy and enforce best practices and SOP’s to drive efficiencies, productivity and profitability.
- Prioritize with lean resources: aim QA effort at the highest-risk, highest-impact work; set a weekly triage rhythm.
- Improve process and tools: design test plans (incl. edge cases, accessibility/security), introduce right-sized automation for regression.
- Make quality visible: stand up dashboards for defect leakage, cycle time, UAT pass rate, and release predictability; drive action from the data.
- Lead the team: mentor a small QA group, set goals, run reviews, and raise the hiring bar.
- Close the loop: run root-cause reviews on key defects; turn lessons into changes in requirements, build, or process.
What You'll Bring
- Built it before: proven success creating or overhauling QA in a fast-moving software org.
- Influence without authority: changes habits across teams; holds the line on standards while staying pragmatic.
- Hands-on depth: strong manual testing, risk-based planning, and practical exposure to automation for regression. Combine high level strategic leadership with granular immersion to mitigate gaps at the root cause level.
- Operator’s mindset: excellent prioritization, crisp documentation, and simple workflows people actually use.
- Metrics fluency: defines and acts on defect leakage, rework hours, cycle time, UAT pass rate, customer-reported issues.
- People leadership: managed and developed a QA or technical team, with a track record of building high-performing groups through clear feedback, accountability, and coaching.
- Bias to action: comfortable with ambiguity; decides, tests, and iterates.
What Success Looks Like
- Defects down, earlier: measurable drop in post-release defect leakage and rework hours within two quarters.
- Predictable releases: higher on-time release rate with clear QA entry/exit criteria used by every team.
- Adoption beyond QA: PMs, Config, and Dev use shared templates and checklists; QA is part of daily work, not a late gate.
- Live visibility: a simple, trusted quality dashboard used in weekly delivery reviews.
- Stronger customer outcomes: fewer production issues, faster UAT, higher satisfaction on launches and renewals.
- Team lift: a confident, coached QA team that scales impact without adding heavy headcount. Scale the team to its ideal composition after 2-3 quarters.
What Makes This Role Exciting
You get to build the quality engine that powers how Agate delivers—no legacy red tape. Your work is visible, high-leverage, and tied to results the whole company cares about: faster delivery, fewer bugs, and happier customers. You’ll shape habits across teams, introduce practical automation, and turn quality into a competitive advantage.
At Agate Software you'll be part of a team that is dedicated to making a difference through cutting-edge technology and unwavering dedication to our impactful work. If you're ready to make a significant contribution to communities in need and grow your career in an inspiring and challenging environment, apply today!
Diversity Commitment:
As an equal opportunity employer, we are committed to fostering an inclusive environment where an expansive range of ideas, backgrounds, and perspectives are the foundation for innovation. We strive to attract, develop, and retain the brightest minds from all walks of life, and we encourage applications from candidates from underrepresented communities, Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, persons of diverse sexual orientation and gender identity, and all those who can provide different perspectives that contribute to the diversification of our team. Individuals who embrace innovation and intellectual curiosity are invited to bring their unique personal and professional experiences to the table to enrich our creativity, thought leadership, and discovery.
To all recruitment agencies: We do not accept unsolicited agency resumes and are not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.
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The Company
What We Do
Agate Software, the US affiliate of IGX Solutions, was founded in 1991 in Okemos, Michigan. Agate Software developed the groundbreaking IntelliGrants management software in 2001. Intelligrants is the first true web-based solution for grant management and is currently used by more than 120 clients across 34 states. Agate currently provides implementation, development, and training services for customers using IntelliGrants IGX, the market’s premier grants management software. Agate also continues to support customers utilizing earlier versions of intelliGrants while providing software development and lifecycle grant management support, maintenance, and services to IGX Solutions and other clients.
