Staff QA Test Engineer

Shield AI is a leading producer of 3D simulator content, including geospecific visual and sensor databases and realistic 3D models. We seek people who share our passion for real-time computer graphics and our commitment to helping make our Nation's pilots safer. You will work with talented people across the graphics, engineering, and quality disciplines.

The Staff Manual QA Engineer is a senior, hands-on tester with a strong command of QA methods and software delivery processes. This role leads complex manual testing, improves test coverage and traceability, supports release decisions, and contributes tests and enhancements within established automation pipelines.

Responsibilities will include, but not be limited to the following:

• Lead risk-based manual testing for a major product area and determine scope from requirements, designs, change lists, and defects.
• Create and maintain manual test plans, test cases, test data, and requirement traceability.
• Prepare representative environments and execute functional, integration, system, regression, smoke, exploratory, acceptance, and release testing.
• Investigate failures, report and track defects, isolate root causes with engineers, verify fixes, and identify regression coverage.
• Assess results, coverage gaps, unresolved defects, and risk to support release-readiness decisions.
• Contribute and maintain test cases, scripts, utilities, and targeted functionality within existing automation frameworks and CI pipelines.
• Improve QA processes for test intake, planning, execution, defect management, reporting, and release validation.
• Apply approved AI tools throughout the QA process to analyze requirements, identify test scenarios and edge cases, draft test cases, assist with failure analysis, summarize results, and improve documentation. Review and validate all AI-generated output before use.
• Share practical AI techniques with the QA team and help identify QA tasks where AI can improve coverage, consistency, or efficiency.
• Coordinate testing across teams and mentor QA engineers in test design, investigation techniques, product knowledge, and QA processes.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Seven to ten years of experience in manual software testing, quality assurance, or quality engineering.
• Strong knowledge of QA principles, software and test lifecycles, risk-based testing, and defect management.
• Ability to independently plan and execute testing for complex features, systems, builds, and releases.
• Experience creating test plans, test cases, traceability records, defect reports, and test summaries.
• Ability to investigate failures, interpret logs and output, and clearly communicate findings.
• Ability to analyze, debug, and trace C++ code to identify the root cause of software issues.
• Experience with test management, issue tracking, configuration management, and continuous integration tools.
• Ability to contribute tests or supporting functionality to existing automated test suites and pipelines.
• Familiarity with AI tools and experience applying them to QA planning, test design, analysis, reporting, or documentation. AI expertise is not required.
• Strong organizational, communication, mentoring, and problem-solving skills.
• College or university degree.
• Eligibility to work with export-controlled technology.

Bonus Points:

• BA or BS in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Experience testing 3D graphics, modeling, simulation, image generation, sensor, or real-time software.
• Working knowledge of Python, C++, or another language used to support testing within Jenkins or a similar CI environment.
• Experience with Jira, Confluence, Perforce, Git, test management systems, or comparable tools.
• Experience testing distributed systems, hardware and software integrations, or multiple supported product configurations.

Benefits

We offer a very attractive compensation package including competitive base salary, company performance-based profit sharing, 401k, 100% employer paid health benefits (medical, dental, vision, life, std,  ltd, and life insurance plans).

No relocation reimbursement provided.

For more information about our company, please visit www.shield.ai.