QA Engineer - Freelance/Contract

As a QA Engineer, you will be a key contributor to our product quality strategy. You won't just follow test cases; you will design them, influence the architecture for "testability," and help maintain our automated testing suites. You are expected to have a deep understanding of how our system components interact and how to identify edge cases that others might miss. This is a freelance/contractor role.

Responsibilities

• End-to-End Ownership: Take full ownership of testing for specific features or modules, from initial requirement analysis to final release.
• Test Strategy & Design: Create sophisticated test strategies that go beyond "happy paths," incorporating negative testing, boundary analysis, and error handling.
• Automation Development: Write and maintain reliable automated scripts within our framework (e.g., Selenium, Playwright, or Cypress). You will help reduce manual regression efforts by identifying high-value automation targets.
• API Testing: Perform deep-dive testing of RESTful APIs using tools like Postman or Charles Proxy to validate data integrity and system integration.
• Defect Management: Act as a "Quality Advocate" by not just reporting bugs, but investigating root causes and providing developers with detailed logs and reproduction steps.
• Collaboration: Work closely with Product Managers to refine User Stories and acceptance criteria, ensuring requirements are clear and testable.
• Mentorship: Provide guidance and peer reviews for junior QA members' test cases and automation code.

Qualifications

• Experience: 3–5 years of professional experience in software quality assurance.
• Willingness to be on-site for project kick-offs and check-ins at our office in Encinitas, CA.
• Automation: Proven experience writing automated tests (not just executing them). Proficiency in at least one scripting language (e.g., JavaScript, Python, or Java).
• Testing Lifecycle: Strong mastery of the Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC) and how it integrates into Agile/Scrum environments.
• Tooling: Expert-level knowledge of Jira, TestRail (or similar), and Git for version control.
• Database: Ability to write complex SQL queries to verify data persistence and perform backend validation.
• CI/CD: Basic understanding of how testing fits into CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or GitLab).

Soft Skills

• Critical Thinking: The ability to look at a feature and ask, "What happens if the user does this?"
• Adaptability: Comfortable switching between manual exploratory testing and technical automation tasks as the sprint requires.
• Communication: Ability to explain technical defects to non-technical stakeholders and advocate for quality when deadlines are tight.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

Metajive provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, amnesty, or status as a covered veteran in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws.