Sr. QA Engineer

For more than 75 years, Highlights for Children has been at the forefront of children education with our coined term, Fun with a Purpose! We believe Children are the World’s Most Important People. We help children become their best selves by publishing content and creating experiences that engage, delight, and foster joyful learning.  

The Senior QA Engineer will lead quality assurance practices for a digital product development team building modern web applications with a .NET backend and Angular frontend. This role is responsible for planning, executing, and improving manual and automated testing across releases, helping the team prevent defects earlier, and ensuring reliable delivery of high-quality software to teacher, student, and administrative end users. The Senior QA Engineer will be hands-on with test design, test execution, defect management, regression planning, API testing, automated browser testing, and release validation. This person will also help guide QA contractors, coordinate testing work across the team, and support scheduled after-hours deployments approximately every three weeks or as needed. 

Key Responsibilities

• Lead QA planning, test strategy, and release validation for .NET backend services, Angular frontend applications, APIs, integrations, and related digital products. 
• Create, maintain, and execute test plans, test cases, regression suites, smoke tests, and acceptance tests using Azure DevOps Test Plans/Test Suites. 
• Design and execute API tests using Postman, including validation of request/response behavior, authentication flows, error handling, and data scenarios. 
• Develop, maintain, and improve automated tests using Microsoft Playwright, with an emphasis on stable, maintainable end-to-end and regression coverage. 
• Perform manual functional, exploratory, integration, regression, cross-browser, and release-readiness testing. 
• Identify, document, triage, and manage defects in Azure DevOps; partner with developers and product owners to clarify issues, verify fixes, and prevent recurrence.
• Review requirements, acceptance criteria, user stories, and technical changes to identify risks, testing needs, edge cases, and gaps before development is complete. 
• Lead and coordinate QA contractors, including assigning work, reviewing test coverage, setting expectations, and helping ensure consistent execution quality. 
• Participate in release planning and support after-hours production deployments every three weeks or as needed, including smoke testing, validation, and defect escalation. 
• Continuously improve QA standards, test documentation, automation coverage, testing processes, and team quality practices. 
• Communicate test progress, risks, blockers, defect trends, and release readiness clearly to development, product, and technology leadership. 

Required Experience

• At least 5 years of professional experience in a QA, software testing, or quality engineering role. 
• At least 2 years of experience in a senior QA, lead QA, or equivalent role with responsibility for test planning, mentoring, process ownership, or release quality. 
• Hands-on experience testing modern web applications with backend APIs and frontend user interfaces. 
• Experience with .NET-backed applications, REST APIs, and Angular or similar JavaScript/TypeScript frontend applications. 
• Experience creating and maintaining automated test suites, preferably using Microsoft Playwright or a comparable browser automation framework. 
• Experience writing and executing API tests using Postman or similar API testing tools. 
• Demonstrated ability to lead QA work across a team, coordinate with contractors or external testers, and drive testing activities through completion. 
• Experience supporting production releases, including after-hours deployment validation, smoke testing, and issue escalation. Required Skills 
• Strong understanding of QA methodologies, SDLC practices, defect lifecycle management, risk-based testing, regression testing, and release readiness criteria. 
• Ability to translate requirements and acceptance criteria into practical test scenarios, edge cases, and repeatable test coverage. 
• Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills, with the ability to isolate issues across frontend, backend, API, data, configuration, and environment layers. 
• Ability to write clear defects, test cases, release notes, status updates, and QA documentation. 
• Working knowledge of automated testing concepts, including selectors, test data setup, assertions, waits, flakiness reduction, and maintainable test design. 
• Comfort reviewing technical logs, API payloads, browser developer tools, and deployment behavior to support issue investigation. 
• Strong communication and leadership skills, including the ability to guide contractors, collaborate with developers, and raise quality risks early. 
• Willingness and availability to support after-hours deployments every three weeks or as needed. 

Preferred Experience

• Experience testing education technology, SaaS platforms, or applications that handle sensitive student or customer data. 
• Experience using Azure DevOps Boards and Azure DevOps Test Plans/Test Suites to manage test cases, defects, requirements traceability, and release testing.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and automated test execution in build or release pipelines. 
• Experience with accessibility testing, performance testing, security-focused testing, or cross-device/browser compatibility testing. 
• Experience with SQL or database validation for backend data scenarios. 
• Experience helping teams improve QA maturity, automation strategy, release gates, and defect prevention practices.

Success in This Role Looks Like

• Release testing is planned early, executed consistently, and communicated clearly. 
• Regression and smoke testing become more reliable, repeatable, and automated over time. 
• Defects are clearly documented, prioritized, verified, and tracked through closure. 
• Contractor QA work is organized, reviewed, and aligned with team expectations. 
• The development team has higher confidence in release quality and fewer avoidable production issues