Principal Software Qa Engineer Jobs in Virginia (NOW HIRING)

POSITION DESCRIPTION:

Pioneering Evolution is seeking a QA Automation Engineer to support a software team by ensuring quality, reliability, and release readiness of platform and application functionality. This individual will work closely with Business Analysts, developers, and technical leadership to ensure requirements and user stories are clear, testable, and fully traceable to test coverage.
The QA Automation Engineer will develop feature-level test strategies and test plans, design and execute manual and automated test cases, and validate functionality in the context of end-to-end workflows, integrations, and downstream impacts. This role will help ensure all functional requirements are covered by appropriate testing and that defects, risks, and coverage gaps are identified early in the development lifecycle.

The ideal candidate will build and maintain automated front-end test suites to verify new functionality, support continuous regression testing, and reduce the risk of defects in existing features. This individual will also identify, document, and track software defects; partner with developers to validate fixes; and provide quality insight to support sprint execution and release readiness.

This role operates as a shared quality engineering function supporting priorities and collaborating across multiple feature areas as directed by technical leadership. This position requires a Secret Clearance and is based in the Washington, D.C. metro area, with on-site support as needed.

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• Five (5) years of experience in software quality assurance, including both manual and automated testing.
• Experience partnering with Business Analysts and development teams to ensure requirements and user stories are testable, complete, and traceable to test coverage.
• Experience developing test strategies, test plans, and test cases for new features, enhancements, and regression coverage.
• Proficiency with test automation tools and frameworks such as Selenium, Playwright, Cypress, JUnit, TestNG, or comparable technologies.
• Experience building and maintaining automated UI tests for functional and regression testing.
• Strong understanding of requirements-based testing, regression testing, and end-to-end workflow validation.
• Experience identifying, documenting, tracking, and retesting software defects throughout the testing lifecycle.
• Strong understanding of the software development lifecycle (SDLC) and Agile delivery practices.
• Experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines to support continuous testing.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively across Business Analysis, engineering, and technical leadership functions.
• Ability to evaluate test coverage, monitor test execution, and communicate quality status, risks, and readiness.
• Active Secret Clearance required.

DESIRED EXPERIENCE:

• Experience with API testing using tools such as Postman, SoapUI, Rest Assured, or similar frameworks.
• Experience with performance or load testing tools such as JMeter, LoadRunner, or Gatling.
• Familiarity with security testing best practices and vulnerability assessment tools.
• Experience working in DevSecOps or CI/CD-driven environments.
• Familiarity with containerized application testing in Docker or Kubernetes environments.
• Experience with test management and traceability tools such as Jira, Zephyr, TestRail, or similar platforms.
• Experience testing workflow-driven or enterprise web applications with role-based behavior.

WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE OFFER:

In addition to competitive salaries and opportunities for professional development and advancement, our employees enjoy a comprehensive range of benefits. To keep pace with the changing needs of our employees, we continually evaluate benefit plans.

• Paid time off10 paid holidays
• Medical insurance
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Legal assistance
• Company-paid life insurance and AD&D
• Company-paid long term and short-term disability insurance
• Tuition reimbursement
• 401(k) plan with company contribution
• Continuing Education Opportunities