Lead QA Engineer

Business Unit:

Cubic Defense

Company Details:

We're looking for a hands-on Lead QA Engineer to lead end-to-end testing through manual testing and Python/Playwright automation. You'll own test strategy, maintain and expand our existing test harness, investigate defects, and work closely with engineers to ensure reliable releases. The ideal candidate brings strong testing judgment, practical automation experience, and the ability to guide QA practices across the team.

Job Details:

Lead QA Engineer

Job Summary

Cubic Digital Intelligence is seeking a Lead QA Engineer to own end-to-end software testing across our applications. This engineer will combine hands-on manual testing with Python and Playwright automation to validate complex user workflows, identify regressions, and help engineering teams deliver reliable, high-quality software. The role includes establishing QA priorities, standards, and practices while remaining actively involved in testing, automation development, and troubleshooting. This is a full-time position based in Ashburn, VA, requiring candidates to be local to the Ashburn/Northern Virginia area.

Essential Functions

• Own the end-to-end testing strategy, including functional, integration, regression, exploratory, and release testing.
• Perform hands-on manual testing of new features and complex workflows, including edge cases, error handling, and failure scenarios.
• Develop, maintain, and enhance automated tests using Python and Playwright within existing testing frameworks.
• Evaluate test coverage and determine where automated and manual testing provide the greatest value.
• Collaborate with software engineers, product owners, and technical leads to clarify requirements, define acceptance criteria, and improve testability.
• Identify, document, and reproduce software defects; investigate failures, perform root cause analysis, and verify corrective actions.
• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines and maintain reliable, repeatable test execution.
• Manage test data and environment requirements to support testing across multiple application components.
• Communicate testing results, quality metrics, and release risks to engineering and product stakeholders.
• Establish and continuously improve QA standards, testing practices, and processes across development teams.
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to QA engineers and developers on testing approaches, automation, and software quality practices.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Must be eligible for a DOD Security Clearence.
• Minimum of 5 years of professional software quality assurance, test engineering, or related software engineering experience.
• Minimum of 2 years of demonstrated QA technical leadership experience, including ownership of testing strategies, automation initiatives, testing standards, or QA activities across engineering teams.
• Strong proficiency in Python and hands-on experience developing and maintaining automated tests using Playwright.
• Experience performing manual, functional, integration, regression, and exploratory testing of complex software applications.
• Experience testing REST APIs, validating application data, and troubleshooting software defects using browser developer tools, application logs, and network requests.
• Experience with Git, CI/CD pipelines, SQL, and modern software development practices.
• Strong analytical, investigative, and troubleshooting skills, with the ability to independently diagnose issues across application components.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to document defects, communicate technical findings, and articulate software quality risks.
• Experience working collaboratively within Agile software development teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with pytest and other Python-based testing frameworks and automation tools.
• Experience developing or maintaining automated testing within GitLab CI/CD pipelines.
• Familiarity with Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, and containerized or distributed application architectures.
• Experience testing applications with complex authentication, authorization, role-based access controls, or data processing workflows.
• Familiarity with PostgreSQL, REST APIs, Linux administration, and cloud-native technologies.
• Experience testing microservices, asynchronous processing, message-driven architectures, or data-intensive enterprise applications.
• Experience working with automated test reporting, coverage analysis, and quality metrics.
• Experience with performance, load, accessibility, or security testing tools and practices.
• Experience supporting Department of War, intelligence community, or other government software environments.
• Demonstrated ability to independently troubleshoot issues across application, database, and infrastructure components.

What Success Looks Like

Critical user workflows have dependable automated and manual test coverage, releases are supported by clear and actionable testing evidence, and development teams spend less time addressing escaped defects and unreliable tests. QA practices are consistent, automation is maintainable, and software quality is integrated throughout the development lifecycle rather than treated as a final release activity.

Cubic Pay Range:

$130,000.00 - $153,000.00 + benefits.

The Cubic pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.

Worker Type:

Employee

We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace and welcome applications from people of all backgrounds. We do not discriminate based on any protected characteristic under applicable law.