QA Analyst

QA Job Description

A QA Contractor plays a crucial role in ensuring the quality, reliability, and performance of software applications by leveraging structured testing methodologies, automation strategies (advanced level), and industry best practices. This requires expertise in analyzing software requirements for ambiguity, clarity, and completeness, designing robust test strategies, creating and executing comprehensive test plans, and test cases/scripts, identifying potential risks and defects early in the project lifecycle, ensuring high-quality software delivery, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to improve quality of software development process throughout the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC).

The ideal candidate should possess strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills. This role demands independent work while maintaining close collaboration with cross-functional teams to drive continuous quality improvements. A QA Contractor should possess strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills and is expected to work efficiently within defined timelines, adapting to project needs while ensuring compliance with industry standards (e.g., ISTQB, ISO 25010, IEEE 829, etc.).

Key Responsibilities:

Test Planning & Strategy

• Collaborate with stakeholders, product owners, PMs, SMEs and software developers to review, analyze and refine software requirements, acceptance criteria and testability considerations.
• Design, develop and implement comprehensive test strategies, test plans, test cases, and test scripts for software applications of different complexity levels.
• Define and drive risk-based testing approaches, ensuring thorough and adequate test coverage and prioritization based on business impact and criticality.
• Assist the business community with preparing and conducting user acceptance testing (UAT) by providing guidance on testing scenarios, test execution and test documentation.

Test Execution

• Execute test cases based on predefined test plans and scripts.
• Validate functionality against business, functional and non-functional requirements.
• Perform exploratory testing to uncover defects not covered by scripted test cases.
• Conduct UI, API, and database validation tests to verify data integrity and backend processes.
• Log execution results and provide feedback on test coverage and effectiveness.
• Prepare and maintain test data.
• Collaborate with developers and SMEs to clarify reported issues.
• Optimize and prioritize test execution based on risk analysis and business impact.
• Identify and address gaps in test coverage and recommend additional scenarios for testing.
• Conduct negative and boundary testing to evaluate system robustness.
• Perform cross-browser, cross-device, and cross-platform compatibility testing to ensure consistent application behavior.
• Analyze system logs, error messages, and API responses for root cause analysis.
• Validate data consistency across integrated systems.
• Work closely with automation engineers to identify manual tests for automation.
• Identify potential high-risk areas and ensure they receive appropriate test coverage.
• Communicate potential risks and blockers to stakeholders in a timely manner.
• Conduct risk-based testing by prioritizing critical test cases.
• Perform impact analysis when changes occur, determining the scope of required regression testing.
• Assist in risk mitigation planning with product owners and developers.
• Identify dependencies and ensure proper integration testing is conducted.
• Incorporate basic security QA validation checks as part of functional and non-functional testing to identify vulnerabilities and common security issues in applications under test.
• Ensure compliance with industry standards (ISTQB, ISO 25010, IEEE 829), accessibility requirements (WCAG), and data privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA when applicable).

Defect Management & Reporting

• Identify, document, and manage defects throughout the defect lifecycle, including root cause analysis and verification of fixes, utilizing defect management tool (e.g., ALM QC, JIRA, etc.)
• Provide clear defect descriptions, steps to reproduce, screenshots, and logs for debugging.
• Retest fixed defects and perform regression testing.
• Conduct root cause analysis for high-impact defects, collaborating with developers and architects.
• Drive defect triage meetings, helping prioritize and categorize issues based on risk.
• Identify recurring defects and recommend long-term fixes to prevent recurrence.
• Track and analyze defect trends to improve development and testing processes.
• Assess the impact of defects on business functionality and user experience.
• Collaborate with developers to ensure early defect detection and prevention, reducing defect leakage into production.
• Generate test execution reports, quality metrics, and risk assessments, providing insights into software quality, stability and readiness.

Test Automation (advanced level)

• Design, develop, and optimize automated test frameworks for UI, API, and backend testing using industry-standard tools (e.g., Quick Test Professional/UFT, Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, TestNG, JUnit, PyTest).
• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, GitLab CI/CD) for continuous validation.
• Develop and execute API automation tests using tools such as REST Assured, Postman, or Karate, ensuring robust backend testing.
• Perform cross-platform and cross-browser automation testing, ensuring consistent functionality across different environments.
• Maintain and optimize automation test suits to improve execution, reliability, and maintainability.
• Conduct performance/load testing using tools such as Load Runner/Performance Center, JMeter, or Gatling, analyzing application scalability, responsiveness and reliability under different conditions.

Education & Certifications:

• A bachelor s degree in computer science, Information Technology, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• OR a combination of education, relevant QA certifications (ISTQB, CSTE, CSQA, or equivalent), and practical work experience.

Experience & Skills:

• 5 years of hands-on experience in Software Testing and Quality Assurance.
• Strong understanding of SDLC and QA methodologies.
• Proficiency in test automation tools and scripting languages (advanced level).
• Experience with test management tools (Quality Center, JIRA, TestRail, Zephyr) and defect tracking processes.
• Experience with SQL and database querying tools is required for extracting and preparing test data to support test case execution and validation.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills.