Senior Quality Assurance Analyst (QA)

Knowledge Services

• $88K — $105K *
Education, Government & Non-Profit
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5-7 years of QA experience; 2 years in a senior or lead role on large government IT projects.
  • Hands-on experience in designing test automation frameworks (UI/API) in production.
  • Experience with CI/CD pipeline integration (Azure DevOps, Jenkins, GitLab CI).
  • Leading UAT with non-technical government end users.
  • Proficient in SQL for data validation and integrity testing.
  • Audit-defensible documentation skills (test strategies, plans, defect logs).
  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or similar.

Responsibilities

  • Own the end-to-end quality strategy for testing and releases.
  • Design and maintain a comprehensive test strategy across multiple workstreams.
  • Establish quality gates and entry/exit criteria for releases.
  • Develop and maintain automated UI regression suites using testing tools.
  • Lead various forms of testing including functional and performance testing.
  • Manage the complete defect lifecycle and reporting process.
  • Plan and facilitate User Acceptance Testing with stakeholders.

Benefits

  • Opportunity for hybrid work with weekly onsite presence.
  • Long-term project stability in a government setting.
  • Mentorship and leadership opportunities to influence junior QA staff.
  • Engagement with high-profile state government projects.
Full Job Description
Overview

Knowledge Services is seeking a Senior Quality Assurance Analyst (QA) for a long-term project in support of the State of Indiana.  

  • Applicants must be currently local to Indianapolis and able to work a hybrid work schedule and be onsite weekly working downtown Indianapolis
  • Please note that we cannot accept any candidates requiring C2C or those requiring sponsorship for a work visa.
Responsibilities

Senior Quality Assurance Analyst (QA) Responsibilities:

• Senior QA Analyst will own the end-to-end quality strategy — from test architecture and automation framework design through defect management, UAT coordination, and release sign-off.

• This is a technical leadership role requiring deep expertise across manual and automated testing, CI/CD integration, and the ability to communicate quality risk clearly to state agency stakeholders.

 

Test Strategy & Architecture

• Design and own the master test strategy across functional, regression, integration, performance, security, and UAT workstreams.

• Define quality gates, entry/exit criteria, and go/no-go frameworks for sprint releases and major deployments.

• Establish traceability from requirements through test execution to defect closure.

 

Test Automation

• Design, build, and maintain automated UI regression suites (Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, or equivalent).• Develop and maintain API test automation (Postman, RestAssured, or SoapUI) for backend services and system integrations.• Integrate automated suites into the CI/CD pipeline (Azure DevOps, Jenkins, or equivalent); automate regression gates at each build promotion.

 

Manual & Specialized Testing

• Lead functional, integration, end-to-end, and exploratory testing across concurrent workstreams.• Execute performance/load testing (JMeter, LoadRunner, or equivalent) to validate scalability under peak usage.• Perform SQL-based data integrity testing to verify backend accuracy, transformation logic, and data governance compliance.

 

Defect Management & Reporting

• Own the full defect lifecycle: triage, prioritization, tracking, root cause analysis, and closure verification.• Deliver test execution reports, defect density analyses, and release readiness summaries to project leadership and stakeholders.• Maintain and report QA metrics: defect escape rate, test coverage, automation coverage ratio, and mean time to detect/resolve.

 

UAT & Stakeholder Engagement

• Plan and facilitate UAT with business users; manage session scheduling, issue capture, resolution tracking, and formal sign-off.• Serve as primary QA liaison to program staff; communicate testing progress, risk exposure, and quality posture at all project levels.

 

Team & Quality Leadership

• Mentor junior QA staff; establish automation code standards, peer review practices, and a shared QA knowledge base.• Champion shift-left testing and quality integration across planning, development, and deployment decision-making.

Qualifications

Senior Quality Assurance Analyst (QA) Required Skills & Experience:

• 5–7 years of QA experience; minimum 2 years in a senior or lead capacity on large-scale government IT projects.• Hands-on experience designing and implementing test automation frameworks (UI and/or API) in a production delivery environment.• Proven CI/CD pipeline integration experience (Azure DevOps, Jenkins, GitLab CI, or equivalent).• Experience leading UAT coordination with non-technical government end users.• Proficiency in SQL for backend data validation and integrity testing.• Track record of audit-defensible test documentation (test strategies, test plans, RTMs, defect logs, test summary reports).• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software Engineering, or related field.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior state government experience with DFR, FSSA, or comparable state human services IT contracts; familiarity with SNAP, Medicaid, TANF, or CHIP eligibility systems.• Experience with performance/load testing tools (JMeter, LoadRunner, or Gatling).• Scripting proficiency in Python, JavaScript, Java, or C# for automation development.

 

Certifications (Preferred)• ISTQB Advanced Level — Test Analyst, Test Manager, or Test Automation Engineer• Certified Software Quality Analyst (CSQA)• SAFe for Teams or equivalent Agile certification

 

 

#INDADM

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