QA Engineer
At Ellevation, we develop world-class software to help school districts and educators support the fastest growing population of K-12 students: English Learners (ELs). By combining great products, student data, and research on best practices, Ellevation helps school districts transform their EL programs and ensure all students can achieve their highest aspirations.
We are a fast-growing, mission-driven technology company, partnering with nearly 600 public school districts all across the country. We are well-capitalized, have a strong and growing team, and are continuously focused on how to build the best organization so that we can achieve our ambitious social and financial objectives.
This is where you come in…
We are looking for a QA Engineer to join Ellevation’s technology team. Committed to preventing bugs instead of finding bugs, you will be asked to create, contribute to, and own pieces of our software development platform and ecosystem. This position is primarily focused on manual exploratory, UAT and regression software testing. You will work closely with our Product team to gain mastery of the ELL domain and our products, help define features and identify areas of testing. You will then apply that expertise to our platform design and development lifecycle by creating, maintaining and extending test cases and executing functional testing across all of our products and important workflows.
Your investigative and usability testing are critical factors in the success of our software. You will help to instrument, gather and make key decisions based on code quality metrics and testing results. Through your understanding of different educator profiles, you will craft and refine distinct user personas and then apply those in your usability and validation testing. Your ability to identify optimal user experiences will better enable your team to rapidly and continuously provide value to our customers through frequent, iterative software delivery.
We value best-practice software engineering principles such as continuous integration, loose coupling, and SOA. As a small technology company, we seek individuals who are willing to be cross-functional, hands-on in multiple areas, and a technical thought leader for the organization.
You are expected to take on and own vital initiatives and duties for the company, spark and lead discussion, and help establish the company’s technical direction while providing timely and quality support and education across the organization. This is a tremendous opportunity to help build the engineering foundation of the company.
We’re looking for someone to join our team with experience in:
- Development and ownership of user experience personas for web-based products
- Highly efficient browser-based, exploratory/UAT/regression testing across a breadth of features
- Using a test case management system and documenting user workflows
- Creating and aligning test plans based on user stories and functional requirements
- Working within an Agile organization (scrum, “lean”, etc.)
- RDBMS platforms such as SQL Server, query writing and schema management
- Continuous integration/deployment processes and tools, such as Jenkins, SVN/Git, and/or Octopus Deploy
- Bonus: Working with customers in a support setting, in a classroom and/or school environment
About You:
- At least 2-4 years of relevant technical expertise, including recent QA/manual testing experience with high-performance, enterprise-facing websites and/or SaaS platforms
- Demonstrated success working at a software startup or early-stage company, promoting a rapidly changing, collaborative, and iterative product development environment
- Passion for software and product quality, valuing clean and elegant, yet pragmatic and effective, software design
- Customer-first mentality and advocate for a delighting user experience
- Ability to work hard while maintaining attention to detail, with a sense of urgency
- BS in Computer Science or other technical field with relevant experience
- Very strong communication skills; ability to communicate clearly both orally and verbally to audiences of varying technical knowledge. Strong interpersonal skills and ability to collaborate cross-functionally
- Commitment to continuous improvement and our mission; desire to focus talents on helping improve outcomes for others
Why Ellevation?
In addition to our great benefit plans and competitive salaries, here’s some other perks that make us unique:
- Great location in Boston - a stone’s throw from the Chauncy Street/Downtown Crossing T stop
- Ability to make a significant impact in the education industry
- Fun Fridays including virtual happy hours with our remote team
- Free snacks, beverages, fruit, and we even compost!
- On-site gym, game room and darts with corkboards behind them to support all levels of athleticism
- Opportunity to join an open and collaborative work environment!