Senior Integration and Testing Lead

By Light Professional IT Services LLC readies warfighters and federal agencies with technology and systems engineered to connect, protect, and prepare individuals and teams for whatever comes next. Headquartered in McLean, VA, By Light supports defense, civilian, and commercial IT customers worldwide. 

Cole Engineering Services (CESI), a By Light company, is recognized as a premier provider of modeling and simulation (M&S) training solutions to the Federal Government and industry. Since 2004, CESI has been at the forefront of developing, maintaining, and integrating simulation-based training, serious gaming, technical services, training and other support in live, virtual, constructive, and gaming (LVCG) domains.  CESI also designs, builds and runs infrastructure, platforms, applications and processes that enable cyber training for the integrated multi-domain force. Our vision is to become a worldwide full spectrum LVCG and cyber training/analysis developer, integrator and services provider.

This position is for the NCRC Range Modernization (RM), The Senior Integration and Testing Lead is a critical leadership role responsible for architecting, governing, and executing the end-to-end testing and system integration lifecycle for highly complex, secure, and mission-critical software and hardware systems. Given the secure nature of the work, this position requires the candidate to be fully on-site five days a week in a cleared facility.

The ideal candidate will bridge the gap between development, operations, and quality assurance by championing modern software  evelopment lifecycles (SDLC). You will be expected to heavily leverage Agile methodologies (including both Scrum and Kanban frameworks) to drive continuous delivery. As the Lead, you will design robust automated testing architectures within Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, ensuring that all integrated components perform flawlessly, securely, and meet rigorous technical specifications before deployment to production environments. 

Must be willing and able to work 100% on-site at the designated facility five (5) days a week. Remote or hybrid work is not available for this position due to the classification level of the projects.

Integration & Test Architecture

• Strategic Test Planning: Design, implement, and continuously evolve overarching integration and testing strategies that validate complex, multi-tiered architectures (including microservices, legacy integrations, and cloud-native components).
• Pipeline Automation (CI/CD): Architect and maintain automated testing gates within established CI/CD pipelines. Ensure that code commits trigger appropriate unit, integration, and security tests automatically, halting deployments when quality thresholds are not met.
• System-of-Systems Integration: Lead the technical integration of disparate subsystems, ensuring seamless data flow, API contract adherence (REST/gRPC/SOAP), and robust error handling across boundaries in high-security environments.

Agile & Methodological Leadership

• Agile Champion: Act as the primary advocate for QA integration within Agile frameworks. Ensure testing is not a bottleneck, but a continuous process embedded within the sprint lifecycle.
• Scrum & Kanban Execution: Actively participate in and occasionally lead Scrum events (Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-ups, Retrospectives). Utilize Kanban boards to manage testing workflows, visualize work-in-progress (WIP) limits for the QA team, and rapidly triage incoming defects to ensure continuous flow.
• Continuous Improvement: Monitor team velocity and defect escape rates, using these metrics to iteratively refine the testing processes and adapt Agile workflows to better suit the project's unique constraints.

Team Leadership & Quality Governance

• Mentorship & Management: Directly manage, mentor, and evaluate a cross-functional team of QA automation engineers, integration specialists, and manual testers. Provide technical guidance on complex debugging and script development.
• Defect Lifecycle Management: Oversee the defect tracking ecosystem (e.g., Jira, Azure DevOps). Facilitate root-cause analysis (RCA) sessions for critical production escapes, ensuring that systemic issues are addressed at the architectural level.
• Compliance & Security: Ensure all testing protocols comply with rigorous federal, defense, or internal security standards necessary for TS/SCI level projects.

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science/Engineering, Systems Engineering, Information Technology, or a closely related highly technical field.
• 7 to 10+ years of progressive experience in software engineering, system integration, or advanced quality assurance, with a minimum of 3 years functioning as a team lead or test architect.
• Proven, hands-on experience operating within Agile environments. Must demonstrate a deep practical understanding of Scrum processes and Kanban flow management for software delivery.
• Extensive experience planning and executing complex software system test cases and procedures.
• Demonstrable expertise in designing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, CircleCI) specifically focused on integrating automated test suites.
• Experience with virtualized and Linux-based environments.
• Strong programming/scripting skills (e.g., Python, Java, Bash, or JavaScript) capable of writing custom test harnesses and automated test scripts from scratch.
• Extensive experience with modern test automation frameworks (e.g., Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, PyTest, or JUnit).
• Deep understanding of API testing tools (e.g., Postman, SoapUI) and microservices integration strategies.
• Experience with project logistics, configuration management of test artifacts (e.g., in Git), and working with controlled engineering baselines.

• Master’s degree in systems Engineering or Computer Science.
• Industry-recognized certifications in Agile or Testing (e.g., Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), ISTQB Advanced Level Test Automation Engineer).
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) testing and DevSecOps principles.
• Experience with VMware vSphere based environments.
• Experience performing integration testing of systems containing Cisco-based networking appliances.
• Knowledge of complex enterprise infrastructures using various operating systems and domain services such as AD, Exchange/email, DNS, DHCP, VPN, databases, IIS, Apache, etc.
• Knowledge of networking protocols such as TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, TFTP, DNS, FTP, etc.

• Must be eligible to obtain and maintain a TS/SCI clearance. (Candidates possessing an active TS/SCI clearance will be given highest priority).

CESI recognizes that our strength is our people. We support every employee as an individual to build strong teams across the enterprise.  Our benefit package includes:

• Medical, Dental & Vision Coverage
• Wellness Program
• 401(k) Matching
• Disability (Short Term & Long Term)
• Employee Assistance Program
• Education & Training
• Generous Leave Policy (11 Federal Holidays, PTO, Military Leave, Bereavement and Jury Duty)

CESI is committed to principles of inclusion and equal employment opportunity.  We foster a non-discriminatory, professional work environment for all our teams.  We do not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, age, marital status, disability, or veteran status.