Mid-level

Software Quality Assurance (QA) Specialist

Protect product quality end to end. Convert requirements into testable behavior, design lean test suites, find defects before customers do, and automate the repeatable parts. Track leakage and fix the root cause with engineering.

Location: United States or Türkiye only. We do not hire outside these countries.

What you'll deliver in your first 90 days

  • Test strategy and risk matrix per project; DoR/DoD and release checklist published.
  • Test assets organized: suites for smoke, regression, API, and critical paths; coverage mapped to user journeys.
  • Automation baseline (Playwright/Cypress) for top 5 revenue- or safety-critical flows; flaky rate <2%.
  • CI integration: tests run on each PR with artifacts, traces, and screenshots; build gate rules defined.
  • Escaped defects reduced by 30% vs last quarter; triage SLA <24 hours; reproducible bug reports.
  • Performance and accessibility smoke checks in place (k6/JMeter and WCAG AA spot checks).
  • Environment readiness playbook: data seeding, mocks, and sandbox accounts documented.

Responsibilities

  • Plan testing from discovery. Review PRDs, stories, and acceptance criteria; call out gaps early.
  • Design and execute manual tests: functional, exploratory, regression, UAT, and cross-browser/device.
  • Build and maintain UI/API automation with Playwright or Cypress and Postman/newman.
  • Integrate tests into CI/CD (GitHub Actions/GitLab CI); enable one-click replays and reports.
  • Own defect lifecycle: reproduction, logs/har, severity/priority, RCA, and verification.
  • Validate non-functional basics: performance smoke, accessibility checks, error handling, resilience.
  • Partner with DevOps and engineers on test data, stubs/mocks, and environment parity.
  • Track and report quality metrics weekly: pass rates, flaky tests, leakage, MTTR, and hotspots.
  • Maintain living documentation: test plans, suites, and runbooks in the repo/Notion.
  • Support release readiness: go/no-go calls, rollback validation, and post-release audits.

Requirements

  • 3+ years in QA for web or mobile products at a startup or agency.
  • Strong test design skills and clear, reproducible bug reporting.
  • Hands-on with UI automation (Playwright or Cypress) and API testing (Postman).
  • Comfort with Git, CI pipelines, and basic scripting (JavaScript/TypeScript or Python).
  • Working knowledge of SQL basics for data setup/verification.
  • Familiar with browser devtools, network tracing, and logs.
  • Tools: Jira/Linear, TestRail/Zephyr (or equivalent), GitHub/GitLab, BrowserStack/Sauce Labs.
  • Time-zone overlap: minimum 4 hours with Pacific Time or Türkiye time, depending on team.
  • Based in the United States or Türkiye.

Nice to have

  • Contract testing (Pact), performance testing (k6/JMeter), and accessibility testing practice.
  • Mobile testing (Flutter/React Native) and device farms.
  • Security awareness (OWASP Top 10) and privacy testing basics.
  • Experience in marketplaces, healthtech, B2B SaaS, or embedded/IoT surfaces.

How we work

  • Two-week sprints, demo every sprint, release often.
  • Shift-left quality: stories have acceptance criteria, tests live with code, CI is the gate.
  • Blameless RCAs with action items, owners, and due dates.

Application items

  • Resume or LinkedIn.
  • Two sample artifacts: a test plan or checklist, and one automation snippet (redact secrets).
  • A brief note on a defect that escaped to production, how you found the root cause, and what you changed to prevent it.

Horizon Labs builds MVPs, modernizes legacy systems, and integrates complex stacks for startups and SMBs. If you care about fast feedback and zero-surprise releases, apply.

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