The Role
The Lead QA Engineer is responsible for overseeing QA processes, developing testing strategies, leading a QA team, and ensuring compliance with federal standards.
Summary Generated by Built In
Position Description: Lead Quality Assurance Engineer
Position Overview
The Lead Quality Assurance Engineer is a senior-level role responsible for overseeing the quality assurance (QA) processes on a software development project delivering a federally-focused contract management system. This hybrid solution centers on a Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) product, augmented by custom applications and integrations with third-party enterprise systems. The Lead QA Specialist will lead a team of QA professionals, develop comprehensive testing strategies, and ensure the system meets high standards of functionality, reliability, security, performance, and compliance with federal requirements.
This position plays a critical role in validating COTS product releases, conducting testing for custom development releases, and performing end-to-end integration testing across the ecosystem. The role requires strong leadership, technical expertise in software testing, and collaboration with development, product, and stakeholder teams in an Agile or hybrid development environment.
Key Responsibilities
Benefits:
Following a probationary period, Centeva offers:
Position Overview
The Lead Quality Assurance Engineer is a senior-level role responsible for overseeing the quality assurance (QA) processes on a software development project delivering a federally-focused contract management system. This hybrid solution centers on a Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) product, augmented by custom applications and integrations with third-party enterprise systems. The Lead QA Specialist will lead a team of QA professionals, develop comprehensive testing strategies, and ensure the system meets high standards of functionality, reliability, security, performance, and compliance with federal requirements.
This position plays a critical role in validating COTS product releases, conducting testing for custom development releases, and performing end-to-end integration testing across the ecosystem. The role requires strong leadership, technical expertise in software testing, and collaboration with development, product, and stakeholder teams in an Agile or hybrid development environment.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead and mentor a team of QA engineers, providing guidance on best practices, assigning tasks, conducting performance reviews, and fostering a culture of quality and continuous improvement.
- Develop, implement, and maintain comprehensive QA strategies, test plans, test cases, and test scripts tailored to the hybrid architecture, including COTS validation, custom application testing, and integration testing.
- Oversee the validation and regression testing of COTS product releases and upgrades to ensure compatibility, functionality, and minimal disruption to existing custom integrations.
- Direct functional, system, integration, regression, performance, security, and user acceptance testing (UAT) for custom application releases and overall system integrations.
- Coordinate and execute end-to-end integration testing between the core COTS platform, custom applications, and a suite of third-party enterprise systems, identifying and mitigating interface risks.
- Collaborate with development teams, product owners, business analysts, and federal stakeholders to review requirements, identify test coverage gaps, and ensure traceability from requirements to test cases and defects.
- Manage defect tracking, prioritization, and resolution processes using bug-tracking tools; report on QA metrics, test progress, and quality risks to project leadership and stakeholders.
- Establish and enforce QA processes, standards, and methodologies, incorporating automation where feasible to improve efficiency and coverage.
- Ensure compliance with federal regulations, security standards (e.g., FISMA, NIST), accessibility requirements (e.g., Section 508), and contract-specific quality obligations.
- Identify quality risks early in the development lifecycle, contribute to risk mitigation plans, and support go/no-go decisions for releases.
- Drive continuous improvement in QA practices, tools, and automation frameworks to support scalable testing in a complex, integrated environment.
- Participate in Agile ceremonies (e.g., sprint planning, daily stand-ups, retrospectives) and coordinate with cross-functional teams to embed quality throughout the SDLC.
- Required to work normal business hours for Utah but must attend occasional early morning meetings based on the Eastern Time Zone.
- Bachelor's degree (or equivalent experience).
- 5+ years of progressive experience in software quality assurance.
- Strong expertise in integration testing, including APIs, data exchanges, and third-party system interfaces in enterprise environments.
- Hands-on experience with various testing types: functional, regression, performance, security, and UAT.
- Proficiency with QA tools and frameworks (e.g., Selenium, JIRA, TestRail, Postman, JMeter, or similar).
- Experience with test automation and CI/CD pipelines.
- Excellent leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Certifications such as ISTQB Advanced Level, CSTE, CSQA, or PMP.
- Experience with contract management systems or similar federal enterprise applications.
- Background in Agile/Scrum methodologies and DevOps practices.
Benefits:
Following a probationary period, Centeva offers:
- Health, dental, and vision insurance; 80% of all plan member premiums are paid by Centeva
- Employee Life Insurance
- Short and Long-Term Disability Insurance
- PTO and all 11 Federal Holidays as paid days off
- 401(k) with up to 4% employer match
- Paid gym membership
Top Skills
JIRA
Jmeter
Postman
Selenium
Testrail
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The Company
What We Do
At Centeva, we’re deeply rooted in Federal Acquisition with members of our executive team having spent decades in the Federal Service and decades more supporting Government as industry partners. We’re also headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, the heart of the “Silicon Slopes” and the birthplace of the “Agile” software development methodology. We excel at providing the acquisition capability and technical solutions today’s modern agencies demand in order to reach the pinnacle of success.
