Quality Assurance Engineer Startup Jobs in Virginia

Rune Technologies builds mission-critical software for military logistics and sustainment. Our flagship product is TyrOS, an AI-enabled logistics command and control platform that gives commanders a single, real-time operating picture of their sustainment fight, from inventory and distribution to medical and operational planning, even in degraded and contested environments.

We're not a traditional defense contractor. We're a small, fast-moving team that combines deep operational experience in and with the DoD with the software discipline of the best product companies, and we apply that combination to a customer set that desperately needs it. We stay close to our users by embedding directly with military units during exercises and rotations, and we ship constantly based on what we learn.

The U.S. military and its allies face a real logistics modernization problem. We're building the software to solve it.

At Rune Technologies, we are building the logistics technology backbone that the U.S. and allied militaries need to dominate in large-scale combat operations. As a Quality Assurance Engineer at Rune, you will play a critical role in ensuring the reliability, stability, and quality of the software that supports mission-critical logistics operations for the warfighter.

You'll join us in our mission to bring 21st-century software to the sustainment domain—modernizing inventory management, transportation optimization, and predictive maintenance with state-of-the-art user experiences. You'll work closely with software engineers, product leaders, Mission Managers, and TechOps to ensure every release of TyrOS meets the quality standards our customers depend on in operational environments.

This is Rune's first dedicated Quality Assurance role. Rather than inheriting an established QA organization, you'll build one. You'll define testing processes, develop scalable automation, and become the quality gatekeeper for our engineering team. If you enjoy creating systems from the ground up, thrive in fast-moving startup environments, and want to directly influence how software is built and released, we'd love to talk to you.

• Own quality across the TyrOS software development lifecycle, ensuring new features meet our quality standards before reaching production.
• Review every pull request destined for the main branch by validating testing evidence, spinning up_ephemeral environments, verifying functionality, and approving or blocking releases.
• Build, maintain, and expand our Playwright end-to-end test suite covering critical user workflows across TyrOS.
• Design automated tests that reduce manual regression testing and improve engineering velocity over time.
• Execute release regression testing to ensure production readiness before every software release.
• Perform non-functional testing including performance validation, accessibility testing, data integrity verification, and basic load testing.
• Partner with software engineers during feature planning to review acceptance criteria, identify testing strategies, and determine which automated checks should block releases.
• Collaborate with Mission Managers and Forward Deployed Engineers (FDEs) to validate customer-specific deployments, upgrade paths, and operational workflows.
• Establish QA metrics, documentation, testing standards, and repeatable processes that scale alongside our engineering organization.
• Continuously improve our testing strategy through automation, tooling, and process improvements.

• 2+ years of Quality Assurance, Test Automation, or Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) experience supporting modern web applications.
• Hands-on experience with Playwright or a comparable end-to-end testing framework such as Cypress or Selenium.
• Experience building and maintaining automated testing suites.
• Comfortable reading application code to understand changes and validate testing coverage. Familiarity with Go and/or TypeScript/React is a strong plus.
• Strong understanding of regression testing methodologies and release validation.
• Ability to work independently and establish processes in a fast-paced startup environment.
• Excellent written communication skills, including bug reports, test documentation, and QA metrics.
• Strong collaboration skills with engineers and cross-functional partners throughout the software development lifecycle.

• Experience working in defense technology, government software, or other highly regulated industries.
• Familiarity with GitHub Actions and CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience working with Kubernetes-based deployment environments.
• Experience performing accessibility, performance, and load testing.
• Experience validating APIs and backend services.

Rune offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees to include a full suite of insurance options at no cost for employees and low-cost to spouses and dependents. Highly competitive equity grants are also included in the majority of full time offers and are considered part of Rune's total compensation package. Benefits include:

• Comprehensive medical, dental and vision plans; premiums 100% covered by Rune for all employees; exceptionally low premiums for spouses and dependents
• Basic life insurance and disability 100% covered for all employees by Rune; option to purchase additional life insurance available
• ‘Take the time off that you need, when you need it’ paid time off, not accrual based
• Generous company holiday calendar including a holiday shutdown in December
• Supportive leave of absence program including time off for military service, medical events, and parental leave
• Full 401(k) retirement plan for all full-time eligible employees
• Company-funded commuter benefits
• Free access to on-site gym at office