Quality Assurance Lead

Job Description
The Quality Assurance (QA) Lead is responsible for ensuring the quality reliability and compliance of software applications that support utility operations. This role is critical to maintaining the integrity of systems that enable energy delivery customer service and regulatory compliance. The QA Lead is responsible for ensuring the quality and functionality of software applications and systems through rigorous testing and validation.

This role involves working closely with developers engineers Site Reliability Engineers (SRE) project managers Vendor quality assurance personnel and internal UAT testers and stakeholders to identify issues recommend solutions and ensure that products meet business and technical requirements. Initial focus of this position will be as the Avista Test Lead for the ERP project.

Responsibilities

• Develop and manage a comprehensive quality management program for enterprise technology systems at Avista.
• Define and monitor quality standards KPIs and metrics aligned with utility operations cybersecurity and regulatory requirements.
• Provide quality oversight for major technology initiatives such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and ETRM (Energy Trading and Risk Management) implementations.
• Ensure vendor deliverables meet internal quality standards and regulatory requirements.
• Coordinate system integration testing user acceptance testing (UAT) and go-live readiness assessments.
• Collaborate with Agile/Scrum teams to integrate quality assurance into sprint planning development and release cycles.
• Promote test automation Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipelines and secure development practices to ensure high-quality software delivery.
• Advocate for shift-left testing by incorporating test planning and automation early in the development lifecycle.
• Ensure quality and consistency in the deployment of infrastructure components including servers networks storage and cloud environments.
• Oversee and coordinate deployments into production and non-production environments (e.g. development test staging).
• Ensure deployment governance processes including change control release validation rollback planning and post-deployment reviews.
• Ensure deployment quality for both infrastructure and software components including in-house applications and vendor-delivered solutions.
• Partner with infrastructure security application and business stakeholders to embed quality and deployment best practices into project life cycles.
• Identify and mitigate risks related to infrastructure reliability software quality and deployment failures.
• Promote the adoption and use of best practices tools and methodologies (e.g. Agile Scrum Dev Ops).
• Develop training and awareness programs to build quality and deployment discipline across teams.
• Champion a culture of continuous improvement quality ownership and operational excellence.

Requirements

• Bachelors degree from a regionally or nationally accredited college or university in Computer Science Information Systems Engineering or related field
• 8 years of related experience
• Demonstrated experience with quality assurance oversight of large implementations
• Demonstrated analysis skills and advanced knowledge of statistical analysis and modeling with the ability to interpret complex data and draw conclusions
• Ability to effectively collaborate and communicate across departments
• Expert knowledge of system testing best practices and methodologies
• Advanced knowledge of Scrum development and tools
• Ability to successfully develop and manage relationships at all levels of the organization and influence a variety of stakeholders
• Advanced level of technical expertise initiative ownership accountability and leadership which can be demonstrated through directing the work of others leading projects and/or processes being the official or unofficial team lead

Other combinations of education and experience may be considered.

Hiring Range: $109,815 to $144,406

Closes: February 19 2026

Hybrid work options are available for this role. The successful candidate will be required to work at a Spokane Washington office at least 3 days per week including Mondays and Tuesdays with additional day(s) determined by the employee and manager.

To Apply
We encourage you to apply as many of our positions have multiple levels to account for an incoming employees various knowledge skills and experience.

Complete an online application and attach your resume and cover letter to your profile. All documents must be attached to your application at the time of submitting your application for review. No documents can be attached after you click Submit.

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