Associate QA Engineer

About the Role

As the QA Engineer on this project, you will be the embedded quality voice on a dedicated, cross-functional scrum team building a modern operational SaaS platform for K-12 education. The platform automates administrative processes for school divisions, so the testing problem is not primarily visual - it is correctness across multi-step workflows, asynchronous integrations, permission-sensitive views, and reporting data that district administrators will make decisions on.

Quality is embedded throughout delivery rather than a gate at the end. You will review stories for testability during refinement, write and execute test cases, build and maintain Playwright automation, and validate releases before they ship. You will work closely with the Technical Lead on test strategy for larger features, and take independent ownership of test execution, coverage, and defect management for the work in front of you.

This is a strong role for a QA engineer ready to broaden beyond UI test execution. You will get hands-on exposure to API and integration testing against .NET services, multi-tenant permission testing under Keycloak and OpenFGA, and validating data that flows from PostgreSQL into a ClickHouse analytics store. The platform is moving from pilot deployments toward general availability, with support available from the Technical Lead and senior engineers as you take on more of the harder testing problems.

Key Responsibilities:

• Reviewing stories and acceptance criteria for testability during refinement, and asking questions where requirements are unclear or incomplete
• Writing, executing, and maintaining functional test cases covering happy paths, edge cases, and negative scenarios
• Building and maintaining Playwright end-to-end automation for user journeys, working within the established framework and patterns
• Performing API testing against .NET REST endpoints, including request/response validation, error handling, and permission behaviour
• Testing role- and permission-based access across the UI and API, including verifying that restricted actions are correctly denied
• Executing multi-tenant test scenarios to confirm data is correctly scoped per school division, working from strategy defined with the Technical Lead
• Testing multi-step and long-running processes, including validating that the application behaves correctly when a process fails, retries, or resumes
• Validating reporting and analytics output against source data using SQL queries
• Conducting browser-based and responsive testing across supported devices and breakpoints
• Performing accessibility testing against WCAG 2.x Level AA using automated tooling and manual keyboard navigation
• Reporting defects with clear reproduction steps, environment detail, and severity assessment, and retesting fixes in Jira
• Maintaining traceability between acceptance criteria, test coverage, and defects
• Supporting release validation and production verification after deployment
• Keeping automated tests running reliably in GitLab CI/CD, and investigating failures rather than re-running them
• Maintaining test cases and testing notes in Confluence as part of the definition of done
• Following established test practices and avoiding brittle patterns - hard-coded waits, unstable selectors, shared test-state dependencies, and environment-specific assumptions
• Participating in refinement, planning, review, and retrospective as a member of a self-directed scrum team

What we are looking for

Must-Have:

• At least 3 years of QA experience testing web applications
• Hands-on experience writing and maintaining automated tests in Playwright, Cypress, or Selenium
• Experience testing web applications with real business logic - forms, workflows, dashboards - rather than primarily content or marketing sites
• Practical API testing experience, including validating REST responses, status codes, and error handling
• Experience testing applications where user permissions or roles change what is visible and available
• Basic to intermediate SQL - able to write queries to verify data rather than relying only on the UI
• Ability to write clear, reproducible defect reports that developers can act on without follow-up
• Experience writing test cases from acceptance criteria
• Familiarity with running automated tests in a CI/CD pipeline and investigating failures
• Awareness of WCAG 2.x Level AA and experience with basic accessibility checks
• Comfortable working within an existing test suite, framework, and set of team standards
• Experience working in agile delivery with refinement, planning, review, and retrospective
• Willingness to raise quality concerns clearly, including when there is delivery pressure
• Must be located in British Columbia, Canada

Technologies

• End-to-End Automation: Playwright (or Cypress / Selenium), test data management
• Component and Unit Testing: exposure to Jest / Vitest, React Testing Library
• API Testing: REST validation, Postman or equivalent, OpenAPI/Swagger contracts
• Data Validation: SQL against PostgreSQL; exposure to ClickHouse for reporting verification
• Identity and Authorization Testing: Keycloak, OpenFGA, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, role- and policy-based access, multi-tenant scoping
• Workflow and Async Testing: Temporal workflows, worker services, event-driven pub/sub
• Accessibility: axe, Lighthouse, keyboard navigation, WCAG 2.x Level AA
• Cross-Browser and Responsive: device emulation, breakpoint validation
• CI/CD and Tooling: GitLab, GitLab CI/CD, Docker
• Work Management and Documentation: Jira, Jira Service Management, Confluence, test case management
• Application Context: Next.js, React, TypeScript, C#, .NET Core

Nice to Have

• Experience defining feature-level test strategy independently
• Experience designing multi-tenant isolation test approaches
• Hands-on experience testing Temporal or another workflow orchestration engine
• Familiarity with asynchronous and eventually consistent systems, and how to test them without relying on sleeps
• Familiarity with fine-grained authorization models (OpenFGA, Zanzibar-style ReBAC)
• Familiarity with C# and .NET, or with TypeScript and React
• Experience with visual regression testing
• Experience with performance or load testing
• Experience with columnar or OLAP stores such as ClickHouse
• Experience with Canadian public-sector or education accessibility and data privacy requirements (AODA and provincial equivalents, PIPEDA, provincial FIPPA)
• SaaS product delivery experience, particularly through a pilot-to-GA transition
• Experience using AI-assisted testing tools to accelerate coverage and maintenance
• Experience in a consulting or client-facing delivery environment
• ISTQB certification or equivalent

Who you are

• You are a meticulous quality advocate who thinks in edge cases and failure modes, and who would rather find the problem than be told the build is fine.
• You collaborate rather than gatekeep - you raise risk early, ask questions when something does not add up, and work with developers to prevent defects rather than just catalogue them.
• You are actively growing your craft, and you want a role where you will get hands-on with API, integration, and permissions testing rather than only UI validation.

What Appnovation Offers 

• Challenging and rewarding work with real impact
• Direct Access to Cutting-Edge AI Platforms
• Diverse and Inclusive Culture
• Growth opportunities for personal and professional development
• A collaborative and innovative work environment where your ideas are valued
• Exposure to exciting projects and high-profile clients
• Supportive work environment with access to company leaders
• Hybrid working model