Lead QA Engineer

About the role

Cubic Digital Intelligence is seeking a Lead QA Engineer to own end-to-end software testing across our applications. This engineer will combine hands-on manual testing with Python and Playwright automation to validate complex user workflows, identify regressions, and help engineering teams deliver reliable, high-quality software. The role includes establishing QA priorities, standards, and practices while remaining actively involved in testing, automation development, and troubleshooting. This is a full-time position based in Ashburn, VA, requiring candidates to be local to the Ashburn/Northern Virginia area.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end testing strategy, including functional, integration, regression, exploratory, and release testing.
• Perform hands-on manual testing of new features and complex workflows, including edge cases, error handling, and failure scenarios.
• Develop, maintain, and enhance automated tests using Python and Playwright within existing testing frameworks.
• Evaluate test coverage and determine where automated and manual testing provide the greatest value.
• Collaborate with software engineers, product owners, and technical leads to clarify requirements, define acceptance criteria, and improve testability.
• Identify, document, and reproduce software defects; investigate failures, perform root cause analysis, and verify corrective actions.
• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines and maintain reliable, repeatable test execution.
• Manage test data and environment requirements to support testing across multiple application components.
• Communicate testing results, quality metrics, and release risks to engineering and product stakeholders.
• Establish and continuously improve QA standards, testing practices, and processes across development teams.
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to QA engineers and developers on testing approaches, automation, and software quality practices.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Must be eligible for a DOD Security Clearence.
• Minimum of 5 years of professional software quality assurance, test engineering, or related software engineering experience.
• Minimum of 2 years of demonstrated QA technical leadership experience, including ownership of testing strategies, automation initiatives, testing standards, or QA activities across engineering teams.
• Strong proficiency in Python and hands-on experience developing and maintaining automated tests using Playwright.
• Experience performing manual, functional, integration, regression, and exploratory testing of complex software applications.
• Experience testing REST APIs, validating application data, and troubleshooting software defects using browser developer tools, application logs, and network requests.
• Experience with Git, CI/CD pipelines, SQL, and modern software development practices.
• Strong analytical, investigative, and troubleshooting skills, with the ability to independently diagnose issues across application components.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to document defects, communicate technical findings, and articulate software quality risks.
• Experience working collaboratively within Agile software development teams.

Qualifications

• Experience with pytest and other Python-based testing frameworks and automation tools.
• Experience developing or maintaining automated testing within GitLab CI/CD pipelines.
• Familiarity with Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, and containerized or distributed application architectures.
• Experience testing applications with complex authentication, authorization, role-based access controls, or data processing workflows.
• Familiarity with PostgreSQL, REST APIs, Linux administration, and cloud-native technologies.
• Experience testing microservices, asynchronous processing, message-driven architectures, or data-intensive enterprise applications.
• Experience working with automated test reporting, coverage analysis, and quality metrics.
• Experience with performance, load, accessibility