QA Engineer - Clearance Required

Red Cell Partners is an incubation firm building and investing in rapidly scalable technology-led companies that are bringing revolutionary advancements to market in healthcare, cyber, and national security. DEFCON AI, a Red Cell company, is an insights company leveraging AI, mathematical optimization, data analytics, and software engineering to optimize complex systems for resilience against disruption.

About the Role

As a QA Engineer, you will own quality for an AI-enabled decision-support system: the test plan, automated coverage, and evidence that what was delivered meets specifications. This role sits on the product side of the organization, reporting to the Product Lead, and focuses on verifying what was specified rather than what was built. You will establish the testing approach as the first dedicated quality engineering hire, requiring a clear point of view on testing practices. This is a fully remote role with up to 25% travel to DEFCON AI HQ, customer sites, and vendor facilities.

Responsibilities

• Test Strategy and Acceptance Criteria
  • Own the system test plan covering functional, integration, performance, and load testing, and maintain it as a formal deliverable.
  • Translate product-defined acceptance criteria into executable tests.
  • Review acceptance criteria with product before development begins, identifying ambiguous or unverifiable requirements.
  • Hold engineering, platform, and partner teams accountable to acceptance criteria, defining evidence required for completion.
  • Work alongside engineering while maintaining independence to report testing outcomes.
  • Plan and coordinate user acceptance testing with customers, tracking findings to resolution.
• Test Automation and Coverage
  • Build and maintain automated test suites, integrating them into the CI/CD pipeline as release gates.
  • Establish and enforce an automated coverage standard, reporting against it.
  • Develop performance and load testing to validate the system under expected user load.
  • Maintain regression coverage across releases.
• Measurement and Evidence
  • Build and maintain labeled evaluation sets with subject-matter experts.
  • Design and run sampled audits to confirm automated decisions.
  • Measure and report system misses alongside correct outcomes.
  • Track and report user overrides of system recommendations.
  • Document how each measure is computed, the data used, and evidence accompanying releases.
  • Produce evidence independently of model developers.
• Release Governance
  • Maintain version inventory across builds, models, configurations, and thresholds.
  • Produce test reports, evaluation records, and rollback criteria for each release.
  • Work with platform engineering to ensure test environments match production.
  • Hold the release gate: no release ships without required evidence.

Requirements

• 5+ years in software quality engineering, test automation, or software engineering with substantial test ownership.
• A clear point of view on testing practices and judgment to prioritize effective standards.
• Strong coding ability in a test automation language/framework (e.g., Python with pytest, JavaScript/TypeScript with Playwright, Cypress, or Selenium). Python is preferred.
• Ability to read and reason about application code under test.
• Routine use of AI-assisted development, with judgment about its value and verification needs.
• Experience building automated test suites and integrating them into CI/CD as release gates.
• Experience owning a test plan through review and acceptance.
• Habit of testing against requirements (not implementation), working directly with product owners or end users.
• Experience with performance and load testing, including interpreting results.
• Statistical literacy, including sampling design and measurement confidence.
• Experience measuring system misses, not just correct outcomes.
• Willingness to report unfavorable results and maintain measurement independence.
• Ability to gate work owned by non-reporting teams and earn engineering credibility.
• Clear, audit-ready written documentation.
• Willingness to hold releases and explain reasons to stakeholders.
• US Citizenship and active US Secret clearance (required from start).
• Willingness to travel up to 25% to customer sites, DEFCON AI HQ, and vendor facilities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Active Top Secret clearance.
• Experience in government DevSecOps, RMF, or ATO environments, including producing test evidence for formal accreditation/audit.
• Contract/API testing, test data management, and building extensible test infrastructure.
• AI-assisted testing: using language models to generate/maintain test coverage while ensuring meaningful tests.
• Performance testing tools: JMeter, k6, Locust, or comparable.
• Validating machine learning/model output, including groundedness, citation checking, and analyzing user disagreements.
• Experience in domains where incorrect results carry real costs and testing satisfies external reviewers.
• Familiarity with model cards, NIST AI RMF, or comparable responsible AI practices.
• Section 508 and WCAG accessibility verification.

What Success Looks Like

• A test plan accepted by the customer that scales with the system.
• Verifiable acceptance criteria established before development starts.
• Automated coverage meeting standards and running as a release gate.
• Sampled audits designed to catch incorrect automated decisions.
• Performance evidence reflecting realistic load.
• A release trail complete enough to reconstruct why any version shipped.

Benefits

• Fully remote, results-based environment.
• Competitive salary, bonus, and equity package.
• 100% employer-paid comprehensive health insurance (medical, dental, vision) for you and your family.
• Unlimited PTO (with manager approval).
• Flexible work environment where you manage your workday.
• 14 weeks of fully-paid parental leave.

Additional firm-wide benefits for full-time roles include career track opportunities, paid maternity/paternity leave, professional development, optional 401K, FSA, equity incentives, mental health benefits (Tara Mind), and cost-effective GLP-1 solutions (Crux).

Pay

Salary range: $135,000–$170,000, based on experience, skills, and other factors.