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Form of workMISSION: The Texas Education Agency (TEA) will improve outcomes for all public-school students in the state by providing leadership, guidance, and support to school systems.
Core Values:
We are Determined: We are committed and intentional in the pursuit of our main purpose, to improve outcomes for students.
We are People-Centered: We strive to attract, develop, and retain the most committed talent, representing the diversity of Texas, each contributing to our common vision for students.
We are Learners: We seek evidence, reflect on success and failure, and try new approaches in the pursuit of excellence for our students.
We are Servant Leaders: Above all else, we are public servants working to improve opportunities for students and provide support to those who serve them.
The posted salary range budgeted for this position is between $5,521.58 and $7,288.58 monthly. New hires will be typically brought into the agency at a starting salary between the posted minimum and the average pay of employees in their same classification in the Office of Technology unless the average pay exceeds the midpoint for the state position's classification salary group. Offers will be commensurate with the candidate's experience and qualifications and will thoughtfully consider internal pay equity for agency staff who perform similar duties and have similar qualifications. The top half of the posted salary range is generally reserved for candidates who far exceed the requirements and qualifications for the role.
Position Overview
The Software Quality Assurance Tester performs advanced (senior-level) systems analysis and team lead work, administering the daily operations and activities of the Quality Assurance (QA) team of Information Technology Office. The work involves planning, budgeting, and analyzing user requirements, procedures, and problems to automate processing or to improve existing systems. Additionally, this work involves overseeing work assignments, estimating the test team's time and effort, ensuring that all test cases are tested on time and correctly, all completed tasks are documented in the tracking system, and that sufficient and adequate feedback is provided and documented for all passed and failed artifacts. This position is also responsible for using and developing IT systems for evaluating and improving the function, performance, security, usability, and overall quality of TEA systems delivered for use by consumers, customers, parents, teachers, administrators, students, and others. The Software Quality Assurance Tester works under minimal direction with considerable latitude for the use of initiative and independent judgement.
Flexible work location in Texas may be considered for qualified candidates.
Please note that a resume and short answer responses are required attachments for applying to this position. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Applicants who are strongly being considered for employment must submit to a national criminal history background check.
About Office of IT
The Office of Information Technology works closely with all agency divisions to implement innovative technology solutions in a cost-efficient manner that supports the goals and priorities of the Texas Education Agency. The Office of IT provides efficient technology solutions and stellar customer services to internal staff, 20 Educational Service Centers, and 1,200-plus public-school districts and charter schools. The following services are provided by IT: leadership on IT initiatives; guidance on security/policy issues; new application development/enhancements; software acquisition; technical support; assistance with technical sections of purchasing documents such as Request for Information (RFI), Request for Offers (RFO), Request for Proposals (RFP); and oversight on the data collection process which helps to support and improve outcomes for all of Texas' 5 million-plus students.
Essential Functions
1. Test Documentation: perform detailed analysis and review of all available requirements keeping the big picture in mind and understanding the ripple effects of a given change; design test strategy and create detailed test plans, test cases/scripts to ensure all software developed meets the defined requirements prior to the production release
2. Testing Quality: perform thorough testing of the application in the test environment and create test data as needed to ensure that all the requirements are covered; perform functional, regression, accessibility, and exploratory testing of the application in an efficient manner leading to a quality product being deployed to production; estimate testing activities accurately to ensure that testing timelines do not impact release schedules
3. Automation: participate in the design and planning of automation for applications. Identify test scenarios to automate including critical path, high risk functionality, tests prone to human error, tests that require multiple data sets, tests that take more time to perform manually and tests that are repetitive
4. Team Contribution: communicate regularly with the Project manager, technical lead, dev team members, customers and QA manager about testing tasks and results to understand project needs and propose corrective action as needed; provide status of work assignments and issues to management in a timely manner; trains other team members to be equally productive and independent; create how-to documents for other team members to use
Minimum Qualifications
Education: Graduation from an accredited four-year college or university
Experience: At least five (5) years of experience in testing complex web applications
Substitutions: Education and experience may substitute for one another on a year-for-year basis.
Other Qualifications
Belief that all Texas students can achieve at high levels and are able to succeed in college, career, or the military.
Ability to work well in a cross-functional organization including expertise to communicate well with management, peers, and cross-functional teams.
Skill in analyzing complex requirement documents and creating detailed test cases from them
Knowledge of working in an agile development environment and following agile processes and procedures
Skill in making sound decisions about quality of software, especially to determine production readiness
Skill in prioritizing work, based on criticality while working on multiple tasks
Ability to learn new concepts and new skills quickly
Capability of and staying current on current industry standards and best practices for testing of TEA systems
Skill in analyzing, evaluating, and testing new or existing procedures, standard tools, techniques, information systems, or utility programs for accuracy, efficiency, effectiveness, and or process improvement
Ability to provide technical assistance, expertise and support to internal and external users and customers including the ability to provide technical concepts to professional, non-technical customers
Capability to assess and communicate resource needs and project status in a timely manner
Expertise in providing, developing, and recommending innovative solutions to increase test productivity and product quality
Ability to work in a cube environment with potential for significant auditory distractions
Preferred experience includes
Oracle 10g or greater
SQL based language
Analysis or development experience in the full range of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
Selenium or other functional automation tool
WAPT PRO or other performance testing tool
As an equal opportunity employer, we hire without consideration to race, religion, color, national origin, sex, disability, age or veteran status, unless an applicant is entitled to the military employment preference.
To review the Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) codes from each branch of the U.S. Armed Forces to each job classification series in the State's Position Classification Plan (provided by the State Auditor's Office), please access the Military Crosswalk (occupational specialty code) Guide and click on the military "occupational category" that corresponds with the state classification in this job posting title.
This position requires the applicant to meet Agency standards and criteria which may include passing a pre-employment criminal background check, prior to being offered employment by the Agency.
No phone calls or emails, please. Due to the high volume of applications, we do not accept telephone calls and cannot reply to all email inquiries. Only candidates selected for interview will be contacted.
