Quality Assurance Engineer

Quality Assurance Engineer
Contract role
Location: Washington, DC, Onsite

As a Senior Software Quality Engineer, you will be a key architect of quality for Client's mission-critical Transportation platform, ensuring the reliability of a high-traffic, distributed microservices ecosystem. Based in Washington, DC, this role focuses on the complex "plumbing" of railway operations—from equipment lifecycles and yard scheduling to real-time event processing. You will move beyond simple UI testing to design sophisticated strategies for state-based systems, event-driven workflows (Kafka), and data-intensive integrations, ensuring that the systems moving America remain resilient, idempotent, and highly performant.

Essential Responsibilities

• Strategy & Architecture: Design and execute comprehensive, end-to-end test strategies for complex, state-heavy distributed systems.
• Automation Development: Build and maintain scalable automated frameworks for both UI and API layers using tools such as Playwright, Selenium, REST-assured, or Karate.
• Backend & Middleware Validation: Rigorously test REST APIs, microservices integration points, and asynchronous, message-based workflows (Kafka).
• Data Integrity: Perform deep-level database validations (SQL/NoSQL) to ensure referential consistency and correct state transitions across the platform.
• Resiliency & Performance: Develop and execute tests for failure handling, retries, and system idempotency; conduct load testing to ensure stability during peak operations.
• CI/CD Integration: Embed automation suites directly into DevOps pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub, or Bitbucket) to support continuous delivery.
• Observability: Analyze system behavior and troubleshoot issues using logs and monitoring tools like CloudWatch, AppDynamics, or ELK/EFK stacks.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Partner with Architects and Product Owners to define quality gates and influence system design from a testability perspective.

Minimum Qualifications

• Education/Experience: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science (or related field) OR 7+ years of relevant experience in software quality engineering.
• Automation Expertise: 5+ years of experience in enterprise-level manual and automated testing, with a focus on UI and API layers.
• Technical Stack: High proficiency in Java and TypeScript for automation scripting.
• Architectural Knowledge: Proven experience testing microservices-based architectures and distributed systems.
• Data Skills: Advanced SQL skills with the ability to validate complex relational and NoSQL database structures.
• Agile Mindset: Deep experience working within Agile/Scrum frameworks and a proactive approach to problem-solving.

Preferred Qualifications

• Industry Context: Experience with high-reliability operational systems (e.g., Logistics, Aerospace, Fintech, or Transportation).
• Event-Driven Systems: Hands-on experience validating Kafka or similar message-broker technologies.
• Performance Engineering: Familiarity with JMeter or similar performance and stress-testing tools.
• Cloud & Legacy Integration: Experience with AWS environments and the ability to validate integrations between modern microservices and legacy mainframe (3270/batch) systems.

Recruiter Submission Template:

Full Name:
Degree Major with University and Completion Year:
Total experience as a Quality Assurance Engineer?
Total experience with manual and automated testing?
Total experience with UI and API?
Total experience with Java and TypeScript?
Total experience with SQL,relational and NoSQL database structures?
Total experience with Agile/Scrum?
Do you have experience in Logistics, Aerospace, Fintech, or Transportation industry
Motivation / Reason for interest in this position:
Contact Number:
Email ID:
LinkedIn Profile URL:
Full Address (Street, City, State, Zip Code):
Notice Period (in weeks):
Current Work Authorization Status:
Hourly pay rate expectation:
Are you willing to work Washington, DC, Onsite? (Yes/No):