Senior QA/Automation Test Engineer with Security Clearance

Job Family

Systems Engineering Travel Required :
Up to 10% Clearance Required :
Ability to Obtain Public Trust What You Will Do :
Guidehouse is seeking an experienced Senior QA/Automation Test Engineer to lead quality engineering initiatives and support the delivery of enterprise-class software solutions within a fast-paced Agile and DevSecOps environment. This role is responsible for defining testing strategy, advancing automation maturity, improving software quality processes, and ensuring scalable, reliable, and secure application releases.

The Senior QA/Automation Test Engineer serves as a quality advocate and technical leader, partnering with software engineers, architects, product owners, business analysts, DevOps teams, and stakeholders to embed quality throughout the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC). The successful candidate will possess deep expertise in test automation, quality engineering, CI/CD integration, and modern testing methodologies while driving continuous improvement and mentoring junior team members.

This position supports a large integrated platform with frequent software releases and requires a proactive approach to risk management, defect prevention, automation optimization, and operational excellence.

Key Responsibilities Quality Engineering Leadership

• Serve as the lead quality engineering resource for assigned applications, platforms, and initiatives.
• Establish and maintain comprehensive test strategies aligned with business, technical, security, and compliance requirements.
• Define quality standards, testing approaches, automation objectives, and release-readiness criteria.
• Advocate for quality-first and shift-left testing practices across development teams.
• Identify quality risks early and provide recommendations to reduce production defects and operational impact.
• Promote continuous improvement of testing methodologies, tools, frameworks, and processes. Test Automation Strategy & Development
• Architect, develop, maintain, and enhance enterprise-scale automated testing frameworks.
• Design reusable automation solutions for functional, API, integration, regression, UI, database, and end-to-end testing.
• Lead automation initiatives that improve test coverage, execution efficiency, and release confidence.
• Establish automation standards, coding practices, and framework governance.
• Integrate automated testing into CI/CD pipelines and DevSecOps workflows.
• Evaluate and recommend emerging automation technologies, AI-assisted testing tools, and quality engineering solutions. Test Planning & Execution
• Develop and maintain comprehensive test plans, test cases, test scenarios, and testing documentation.
• Review business, functional, technical, and architecture requirements to ensure adequate test coverage.
• Execute and oversee functional, integration, performance, regression, system, user acceptance, and release validation testing.
• Ensure traceability between requirements, test cases, defects, and production releases.
• Validate application functionality, usability, performance, reliability, and security expectations. Defect Management & Root Cause Analysis
• Lead defect triage sessions and quality reviews with development teams and stakeholders.
• Perform in-depth root cause analysis of defects, failures, and production incidents.
• Identify recurring quality challenges and recommend preventive solutions.
• Establish defect metrics and reporting that drive actionable improvements.
• Verify corrective actions and ensure adequate regression coverage. Agile & DevSecOps Collaboration
• Participate in sprint planning, backlog refinement, architecture discussions, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.
• Collaborate with developers to ensure testability of system designs and requirements.
• Support continuous integration and continuous delivery practices through automated validation gates.
• Partner with DevOps teams to improve deployment quality, release automation, and environment stability.
• Contribute to secure software delivery through automated validation and security-focused testing. Mentorship & Technical Leadership
• Mentor and coach junior and mid-level QA engineers and automation specialists.
• Conduct peer reviews of test cases, automation scripts, and quality artifacts.
• Establish quality engineering best practices and promote knowledge sharing throughout the organization.
• Lead process improvement initiatives and champion innovation within the QA Serve as a trusted advisor on software quality, testing strategy, and automation approaches. Performance Expectations Delivery Excellence
• Consistently deliver testing activities that align with sprint, release, and program objectives.
• Support high-quality releases with minimal production-impacting defects.
• Proactively identify and mitigate quality risks before deployment. Automation Leadership
• Continuously expand and improve automated test coverage across applications and platforms.
• Reduce manual testing effort through scalable and maintainable automation solutions.
• Improve execution speed, reliability, and reporting of automated test suites. Quality Improvement
• Drive measurable reductions in defect leakage and production incidents.
• Improve overall software quality metrics through proactive quality engineering practices.
• Establish repeatable, efficient testing processes across teams. Technical Excellence
• Maintain modern automation frameworks and testing architectures.
• Ensure automation assets remain maintainable, reusable, and scalable.
• Demonstrate expertise in enterprise testing disciplines and emerging technologies. Collaboration & Influence
• Effectively communicate testing status, risks, dependencies, and recommendations to technical and business stakeholders.
• Build strong collaborative relationships with engineering, product, architecture, and operations teams.
• Mentor team members and contribute to organizational quality maturity.

What You Will Need : Education

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or related technical discipline.
• Equivalent combination of education and FOUR (4) years relevant experience may be considered in leu of degree. Additional Requirements
• U.S. Citizenship required.
• Exceptional analytical, troubleshooting, and problem-solving abilities.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to effectively influence technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Proven ability to manage multiple priorities in a dynamic environment. Experience
• SEVEN ( 7) years of professional experience in Software Quality Assurance, Test Automation, or Quality Engineering.
• Minimum FIVE (5) years designing and implementing automated testing frameworks and solutions.
• Experience leading testing efforts on large-scale enterprise applications.
• Experience operating within Agile, Scrum, SAFe, or comparable delivery frameworks.
• Experience supporting CI/CD and DevSecOps environments. Technical Expertise Demonstrated expertise in:
• Test automation architecture and framework design.
• Functional, integration, regression, system, API, database, and end-to-end testing.
• Quality engineering methodologies and best practices.
• Defect lifecycle management and root cause analysis.
• Test strategy development and risk-based testing.
• Continuous integration and continuous testing practices.
• Enterprise SDLC processes and release management.
• Software quality metrics, reporting, and test governance. Programming & Automation Skills Strong experience with:
• Java (preferred) or equivalent object-oriented programming languages.
• Automation framework development and maintenance.
• TestNG, Junit, Nunit, Selenium, Katalon, or equivalent testing technologies.
• SQL and database validation techniques.
• Source control platforms such as Git. Tools & Technologies Experience with several of the following:
• Selenium, Katalon Studio, Jenkins , TestNG , JUnit / NUnit , JMeter , Postman , REST Assured , SonarQube, Jira, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions , Datado, Splunk , Dynatrace What Would Be Nice To Have : Advanced Automation & Modern Testing
• Experience building automation frameworks from the ground up.
• Experience implementing Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) using Cucumber or SpecFlow.
• Experience with Test-Driven Development (TDD) environments.
• Knowledge of contract testing and service virtualization.
• Experience with intelligent and AI-assisted testing platforms. Cloud & Modern Architecture
• Experience testing cloud-native solutions hosted in Microsoft Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud Platform.
• Experience with containerized applications using Docker and Kubernetes.
• Knowledge of distributed systems, event-driven architectures, and microservices.
• Experience validating serverless and API-first applications. DevSecOps & Security
• Experience integrating automated testing into enterprise CI/CD pipelines.
• Understanding of DevSecOps principles and secure SDLC methodologies.
• Experience supporting automated security, vulnerability, and compliance testing.
• Familiarity with OWASP principles and application security testing. Performance & Reliability Engineering
• Experience conducting load, stress, scalability, and performance testing.
• Experience leveraging observability and monitoring platforms.
• Familiarity with Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) concepts.
• Experience establishing performance baselines and service-level objectives (SLOs). Business Domain Knowledge
• Insurance industry experience.
• Understanding of customer experience (CX) and digital product quality principles. Professional Certifications
• ISTQB Advanced Test Automation Engineer
• ISTQB Advanced Test Manager
• Certified Agile Tester (CAT)
• SAFe Agilist or SAFe Practitioner
• Certified Scrum Master (CSM)
• Microsoft Azure Fundamentals or Azure DevOps certifications
• AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner or equivalent cloud certification The annual salar