Quality Assurance & Compliance Lead

Overview

The Quality Assurance & Compliance Lead supports the Case Management Modernization (CMM) Program for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO) by overseeing all aspects of quality assurance (QA), testing governance, and compliance verification across Agile and Dev Sec Ops  teams. This role ensures that CMM application components meet stringent federal standards for quality, performance, and security. The QA & Compliance Lead establishes consistent quality frameworks, enforces traceability, and validates adherence to program-level policies, regulations, and modernization objectives.

• Lead the quality assurance strategy and governance framework for the CMM Dev modernization effort.
• Define and maintain test management standards, methodologies, and metrics aligned with Agile and SAFe delivery models.
• Oversee functional, integration, regression, performance, and security testing activities across all CMM applications.
• Ensure compliance with federal standards including Section 508 accessibility, FedRAMP security, and NIST controls.
• Coordinate with Product Owners, Developers, and Automation Test Engineers to validate acceptance criteria and test coverage.
• Establish and maintain traceability matrices linking requirements to test cases, defects, and validation artifacts.
• Support independent verification and validation (IV&V) processes and compliance audits.
• Review and approve test plans, results, and release readiness documents prior to production deployment.
• Define and track QA metrics (defect density, test pass rates, mean time to resolution) to drive continuous improvement.
• Promote shift-left testing, early defect detection, and alignment of QA practices with Dev Sec Ops  pipelines.
• Provide oversight for quality-related documentation, ensuring audit readiness and adherence to SOW deliverables.
• Deliverable Alignment & Performance Outcomes:
  Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan (QASP), Traceability and Test Artifacts, Compliance Reports, Metrics Dashboards, and Performance Outcomes.
• Maintain ≥95% defect closure rate within each sprint or release; achieve ≥98% compliance alignment across all system deliverables; demonstrate ≤5% variance in test execution coverage across releases; ensure zero audit findings related to documentation or compliance artifacts.

• Required
  
  Skills & Experience:
  
  
• 10+ years of experience in software testing and QA governance, with 5+ years in a lead or managerial capacity.
• Proven ability to implement QA frameworks supporting large-scale Agile or SAFe development programs.
• Deep understanding of federal compliance standards (FedRAMP, FISMA, NIST, Section 508).
• Experience defining test strategies for cloud-native and containerized applications on AWS or Azure.
• Familiarity with Dev Sec Ops  pipelines and continuous testing tools.
• Strong analytical and documentation skills with experience supporting IV&V and audit activities.
• Excellent leadership and stakeholder engagement capabilities.
• Preferred
  
  Skills:
  
  
• Experience leading QA in federal cloud modernization or enterprise application transformation projects.
• Knowledge of performance and load testing methodologies (e.g., JMeter, Load Runner).
• Familiarity with AI-driven testing and predictive analytics for quality optimization.
• Experience in Agile test management using Jira, Test Rail, or Zephyr.
• Understanding of Fin Ops and Cloud Governance compliance reporting.
• Certifications:
• Certified Software Quality Analyst (CSQA) or ISTQB Advanced Test Manager – preferred.
• SAFe Agile Product Quality or SAFe Practitioner – preferred.
• AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner or AWS Certified Dev Ops Engineer – beneficial.
• ITIL 4 Foundation or CMMI-DEV – a plus.

• Test management:
  Jira, Zephyr, Test Rail, qTest.
• Automation and CI/CD:
  Selenium, Playwright, Jenkins, Git Lab, Sonar Qube.
• Performance and monitoring: JMeter, Load Runner, New Relic, Datadog.
• Compliance and documentation:
  Confluence, SharePoint, Service Now.

• 10+ years of general experience in information systems
• 8+ years of specialized experience
• Minimum Education:
  
  MA/MS
• Experience may be considered in lieu of degree as follows: HS (16+ years),…