Sr. Quality Assurance Analyst

About the Role:

As a Quality Assurance Analyst, you will play a critical role in delivering high‑quality software solutions to our clients by ensuring testing excellence across complex, data‑driven initiatives. You will be aligned to a business‑unit delivery team and partner closely with Product Owners, Business Analysts, Developers, and other QA professionals to define, execute, and continuously improve testing strategies.

This role balances hands‑on testing with test planning, automation, reporting, and quality advocacy. You will contribute across multiple initiatives, applying risk‑based thinking and strong technical skills to help ensure our solutions are reliable, scalable, and production‑ready.

The Impact You'll Make:

• Develop and implement effective, risk‑based testing strategies across multiple projects, ensuring appropriate coverage, traceability, and quality outcomes
• Drive the testing lifecycle from business scope through deployment and production release within an agile delivery model
• Design, create, and execute comprehensive test plans, test cases, test scripts, and test data, including functional, integration, regression, data integrity, and stress testing
• Evaluate opportunities for test automation and performance testing, recommending appropriate tools, approaches, and frameworks
• Design, develop, execute, and maintain automated test scripts, while analyzing test results and identifying root causes of failures
• Review business requirements, technical designs, and acceptance criteria to identify gaps, risks, and testability concerns early in the delivery process
• Identify, document, communicate, and track defects from discovery through resolution, ensuring clear reproduction steps and impact analysis
• Develop and manage QA metrics and reporting to monitor quality trends, surface risks, and drive continuous improvement
• Coordinate test environments, test data creation, and build promotions in partnership with project and delivery teams
• Participate in agile ceremonies, design reviews, and backlog refinement, advocating for quality practices and influencing delivery decisions
• Educate and mentor developers, peers, and future QA team members on testing approaches, tools, and quality standards
• Contribute to the evolution of QA processes, tools, automation practices, and continuous improvement initiatives across teams

What You'll Bring to Baird:

• A minimum of five (5) years of prior IT or business‑related experience, including at least three to five (3-5) years of Quality Assurance, Test Automation, or Software Development experience
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, MIS, Business Administration, Finance, or a related field preferred
• Strong ability to decompose business and technical requirements into detailed, effective test cases for functional, regression, and integration testing
• Demonstrated knowledge of software testing types and methodologies, including black‑box, white‑box, gray‑box, regression, negative, system, and unit testing
• Experience working within agile delivery frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, Lean) and executing testing activities within short iteration cycles
• Hands‑on experience testing APIs and data integrations, with a strong understanding of how data flows across systems
• Demonstrated experience with automated UI and API testing tools (e.g., Selenium, ThunderClient, SOAPUI or similar), with the ability to identify and implement automation opportunities
• Strong SQL skills, including the ability to write queries to validate data integrity, transformations, and reporting accuracy across large data sets
• Experience with defect tracking, QA metrics, and reporting, with a focus on driving quality improvements
• Familiarity with test management tools such as Microsoft Test Manager, Quality Center, Azure DevOps, or similar platforms preferred
• Working knowledge of common web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, REST APIs)
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with both technical and business stakeholders
• Proven ability to adapt to changing priorities, manage multiple initiatives, and identify quality risks in complex environments
• Experience partnering with Business Analysts, Product Owners, and Developers to review requirements, identify risks, and promote quality best practices

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Baird is committed to diversity and provides employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, citizenship, national origin, age, disability, military service, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, or any other status protected by law.