QA / Test Automation Engineer

We are seeking a skilled and detail‑oriented QA / Test Automation Engineer to support quality assurance and automated testing efforts for a complex, mission‑critical federal Identity and Access Management (IAM) program within the U.S. Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid (FSA) office. The ideal candidate brings strong expertise in test automation frameworks, agile testing methodologies, and functional/security testing of enterprise IAM solutions.

This position plays a pivotal role in ensuring the quality, reliability, and security of FSA's modernized IAM platform. The QA / Test Automation Engineer works within an agile development environment, collaborating with developers, product owners, and security teams to design and execute comprehensive test strategies that validate user stories, acceptance criteria, and non-functional requirements across development, test, and production environments.

•    Design, develop, and maintain automated test suites using industry-standard test automation frameworks and tools, with preference for automated over manual testing approaches.
•    Execute unit testing, regression testing, and integration testing to validate that code changes meet acceptance criteria and do not introduce defects.
•    Perform code reviews with development team members to ensure test quality and adherence to testing best practices.
•    Validate that all non-functional requirements are met, including performance, security, scalability, and compliance standards.
•    Ensure acceptance criteria are satisfied for all user stories and features prior to deployment.
•    Support functional and security testing of FSA Applications and Services integrated with the IAM platform.
•    Develop and execute test plans for feature deployments across development, test, Enterprise Performance Test (EPT), and production environments.
•    Collaborate with FSA Product Owners to understand testing requirements and provide feedback on testability of user stories and requirements.
•    Participate in sprint planning and backlog refinement to identify testing needs and estimate testing effort.
•    Validate that all automated and manual testing suites pass before features are packaged for release or deployment to higher environments.
•    Ensure all security and compliance requirements are met through security testing and validation.
•    Document test results, defects, and test coverage metrics; provide reporting to FSA and development teams.
•    Support progressive migration of existing applications into the integrated IAM platform by testing authentication, authorization, and audit capabilities.
•    Participate in agile ceremonies including daily standups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.
•    Maintain test automation code and test data in version control systems; ensure reproducibility and traceability of test execution.
•    Collaborate with DevSecOps and infrastructure teams to support continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines.