IT Quality Assurance Manager

Job Description:

Position Summary The Portfolio Test Lead – VA Programs provides strategic and hands‑on leadership for testing across multiple contracts within the GDIT Veterans Affairs (VA) portfolio. This role leads testing activities in a matrixed capacity (no large direct-report organization) across 4–10 concurrent projects, each with independent needs and test teams ranging from 2–15 testers. The Portfolio Test Lead tailors test strategies to each project, drives common testing best practices, and ensures effective test execution.

The individual will work closely with GDIT and VA leadership to define testing strategies, communicate risks and results, and ensure testing supports VA mission and business objectives, including accessibility (508/WCAG 2.1 AA), performance at production-representative scale, and legacy‑to‑modern system parity.

• Portfolio Test Leadership – Provide overall test leadership across multiple VA contracts and 4–10 active projects with test teams of 2–15 people per project (employees, subcontractors, and VA resources in a matrixed environment).
• Testing Strategy & Tailoring – Develop and tailor project-specific test strategies covering functional, regression, integration, performance, security, and UAT testing.
• Accessibility Compliance (508/WCAG) – Ensure testing strategies and execution incorporate Section 508 and WCAG 2.1 AA requirements, including test planning, tooling, and defect triage for accessibility issues.
• Performance at Scale – Define performance and load-testing approaches using production-representative data volumes and realistic usage patterns, not small or artificial test datasets.
• Legacy-to-Modern Parity Testing – Drive test approaches that validate behavioral and data parity between legacy and modernized systems, including side-by-side comparisons, migration validation, and regression coverage of critical workflows.
• Enterprise Integration Testing – Lead integration test planning and execution across VA enterprise services (e.g., SSO, MPI, eFolder, API gateways, and other shared services), ensuring end-to-end interoperability and resiliency.
• Standardization & Best Practices – Define and maintain portfolio-level test standards, templates, and processes, and coach project teams in applying them while allowing for project‑specific tailoring.
• Hands‑On Test Leadership – Remain actively hands‑on where needed (e.g., review/author complex test scenarios, validate performance scripts, review accessibility findings, troubleshoot integration issues).
• Automation & Dev Sec Ops  – Promote pragmatic test automation and continuous testing within CI/CD pipelines, prioritizing high‑value regression, integration, and API test suites.
• Quality Metrics & Reporting – Define, track, and report key test and quality metrics (coverage, defect trends, escape rates, performance benchmarks, accessibility compliance) to GDIT and VA leadership.
• Stakeholder & Executive Engagement – Brief GDIT and VA leadership on testing strategies, risks, and outcomes; provide clear recommendations and options when quality/risk trade‑offs are required.
• Risk Management – Identify portfolio‑level quality and testing risks early and drive mitigation strategies across projects (e.g., additional test cycles, targeted performance testing, enhanced integration tests).
• Matrixed Team Leadership – Coordinate and influence test leads and engineers across projects (often without direct line authority), aligning priorities and resolving cross‑team issues.
• Continuous Improvement – Lead retrospectives, root cause analysis, and lessons learned activities; roll out improvements across the portfolio (e.g., shared test suites, reusable scripts, integration test harnesses).
• Collaboration with Delivery…