Software Quality Assurance Engineer

Golden Gate Innovations is a leading provider of AI-driven technology solutions designed specifically for high-growth startups in Silicon Valley. The company specializes in transforming innovative concepts into scalable, high-performance products by leveraging advanced AI, engineering simulations, intelligent automation, and cybersecurity engineering. With core strengths in AI and machine learning, optimized engineering modeling, secure product development, and robust cloud and web infrastructure, Golden Gate Innovations combines deep technical expertise with a product-first mindset to help startups accelerate innovation, enhance security, and improve operational efficiency. The work environment is fast-paced and collaborative, fostering continuous learning and impact-driven problem solving.

Key Responsibilities
The Software Quality Assurance Engineer will play a critical role in ensuring the reliability, performance, and security of software products delivered to clients. This full-time remote position involves designing and executing manual test plans and test cases, identifying and documenting defects, and collaborating closely with software developers to resolve issues and improve overall product quality. The engineer will participate in requirements reviews, validate new features against specifications, and contribute to release readiness through regression testing and quality reporting. Additionally, the role includes refining quality standards, proposing process improvements, and supporting continuous integration and delivery pipelines to maintain high-quality releases across AI-driven and cloud-based solutions.

Required Qualifications
- 1 to 2 years of QA experience with web applications, including internships or contract work.
- Strong understanding of manual testing fundamentals such as test case design, boundary and negative testing, role and permission testing, and regression strategies.
- Working knowledge of Python, capable of reading and extending existing codebases independently.
- Practical experience with UI automation frameworks like Playwright, Selenium, or Cypress, including locator strategies and wait handling.
- Proficiency using browser developer tools (network tab, console, DOM inspection) to identify stable selectors.
- Basic API testing skills using tools like Postman, with the ability to interpret JSON responses and status codes.
- Experience testing ETL/data pipelines, including validating extraction, transformation, and load stages, reconciling source and destination data, and detecting silent data loss.
- Familiarity with Git fundamentals such as branching, committing, opening pull requests, and resolving simple conflicts.
- Experience working with bug tracking systems (preferably Jira) and agile sprint processes.
- Strong written English communication skills, essential for precisely describing issues to enable efficient resolution.

Preferred Qualifications and Benefits
- Experience testing AI or large language model (LLM) powered features, including prompt evaluation and validation of non-deterministic outputs.
- Knowledge of async/await in Python or experience with asynchronous test frameworks.
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, particularly GitHub Actions, including reading workflow logs and test artifacts.
- SQL skills for verifying data integrity behind user interfaces.
- Experience with performance or load testing tools such as k6, JMeter, or Locust.
- Background in regulated, document-heavy domains like legal tech, insurance, or healthcare.
- Basic understanding of security testing concepts, including authentication boundaries, role escalation, and input validation.

Tech Stack
Python 3, Playwright (async), Pytest, GitHub Actions, Next.js, Node/Express, Flask, PostgreSQL, Redis/BullMQ, Qdrant, OpenAI, Sentry, Jira, Postman.

This role offers the opportunity to contribute to cutting-edge AI and cloud-based products while working remotely in a dynamic startup-focused environment. Golden Gate Innovations values continuous improvement and provides a platform for engineers to grow their skills and make a meaningful impact.