Mid-Level Test Engineer

Help ensure Intelligence Community analysts and mission operators have reliable, secure software they can depend on to make critical decisions and execute national security missions.

Leidos is seeking a detail-oriented, mission-focused Mid-Level Test Engineer to support the Chinook program for an Intelligence Community (IC) customer. In this role, you'll help ensure mission-essential applications function as intended, deliver accurate information, and perform reliably when our customers need them most. By identifying defects before software reaches operational environments, you'll directly contribute to reducing mission risk, improving system reliability, and enabling intelligence professionals to execute their responsibilities with confidence.

As an integral member of a collaborative Agile development team, you'll take a hands-on approach to software quality through manual functional testing, comprehensive test planning, detailed test procedure development, and API validation. You'll work closely with software developers, product owners, and mission stakeholders to translate requirements into effective test scenarios, uncover complex defects, and ensure new capabilities meet both functional requirements and operational expectations.

If you're passionate about solving problems, enjoy digging into software to uncover issues others might miss, and want your work to directly support critical national security missions, this is an opportunity to make a meaningful impact.

Position may be performed in the following locations below.  Please note Gaithersburg, MD is the program’s primary work location.

• Gaithersburg, MD
• Alexandria, VA
• Chantilly, VA
• Englewood, CO
• St. Louis, MO
• Tucson, AZ 

Clearance Level Required:

Active Top Secret/SCI with the ability to successfully pass a Polygraph examination.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Plan, develop, and execute comprehensive manual test cases and detailed test procedures to validate software functionality against defined requirements, user stories, and acceptance criteria.
• Perform hands-on functional, integration, system, regression, smoke, and exploratory testing of web-based applications and associated services.
• Develop and maintain test plans, test scenarios, test cases, test procedures, and test execution documentation that provide clear, repeatable, and traceable verification of software requirements.
• Conduct API testing using tools such as Bruno, Postman, and/or Swagger UI to validate RESTful services, HTTP requests and responses, JSON payloads, authentication, error handling, and data integrity.
• Collaborate with developers, product owners, business analysts, and other stakeholders to understand application functionality, clarify requirements, and identify appropriate testing strategies.
• Participate actively in Agile ceremonies, including sprint planning, daily standups, backlog refinement, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.
• Analyze user stories and acceptance criteria to identify positive, negative, boundary, and edge-case test scenarios.
• Execute manual tests across development, integration, and staging environments to identify functional defects, integration issues, and unexpected application behavior.
• Document, track, and manage software defects using Jira or comparable issue-tracking tools, providing clear reproduction steps, supporting evidence, and expected versus actual results.
• Perform defect verification and regression testing to confirm that identified issues have been resolved without introducing new problems.
• Maintain requirements traceability to ensure test coverage aligns with functional specifications and customer expectations.
• Support test data preparation, test environment readiness, and troubleshooting activities to enable effective test execution.
• Work closely with software engineers to investigate application issues, isolate defects, and support root-cause analysis.
• Communicate testing progress, defect trends, risks, and overall software quality to Agile team members and program stakeholders.
• Identify opportunities to improve testing processes, increase test coverage, and strengthen overall software quality throughout the development lifecycle.

Basic Qualifications:

• US citizenship is required per contract
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology or related field and 4-8 years of prior relevant experience or Master’s with 2-6 years of prior relevant experience. Equivalent experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.
• 4+ years of software testing, quality engineering, or software validation experience.
• Demonstrated experience performing manual functional, integration, regression, and system testing of enterprise software applications.
• Proven ability to develop comprehensive test plans, detailed test procedures, test cases, and test scenarios based on software requirements and user stories.
• Hands-on experience performing API testing using Bruno, Postman, or comparable API testing tools.
• Working knowledge of RESTful APIs, HTTP methods, status codes, JSON payloads, and API request/response validation.
• Experience identifying, documenting, tracking, and retesting software defects.
• Experience working within an Agile software development environment, including participation in Scrum ceremonies and sprint-based testing activities.
• Experience using test management and issue-tracking tools such as Jira, or equivalent platforms.
• Strong understanding of software testing methodologies, the Agile Software Development Life Cycle (Agile SDLC) the software development lifecycle (SDLC), and the software testing lifecycle (STLC).
• Ability to analyze technical requirements and translate them into clear, measurable, and repeatable test procedures.
• Experience validating end-to-end business processes and user workflows across multiple application components.
• Hands-on experience with geospatial applications or GEOINT data.
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills with exceptional attention to detail.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to clearly document test results and communicate defects to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced, mission-focused Agile environment.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience supporting DoD or IC programs.
• Experience developing and executing detailed test procedures for complex, mission-critical enterprise applications.
• Experience testing applications that support intelligence analysis, data processing, or operational workflows.
• Familiarity with API authentication mechanisms, including OAuth 2.0, JWT, and role-based access controls.
• Experience performing SQL queries to validate backend data, troubleshoot defects, and verify data integrity.
• Experience testing microservices-based applications and distributed systems.
• Familiarity with Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) processes and DevSecOps software delivery practices.
• Exposure to automated testing frameworks or tools such as Playwright, Selenium, or Cypress.
• Experience testing cloud-hosted applications or applications deployed in AWS environments.
• Familiarity with Linux environments, command-line utilities, and application log analysis.
• Experience with requirements traceability matrices, formal test documentation, and test readiness reviews.
• Knowledge of accessibility, usability, and security testing considerations.
• Experience working with cross-functional teams to improve testing processes and establish quality engineering best practices.
• Certifications such as ISTQB, CASTP, CAST, CSTE, Security+, or similar.

#Chinook

#NSBA

If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.

Original Posting:

Pay Range:

The Leidos 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.