Senior QA Analyst (12 months Contract)

Position Summary

The Senior Quality Assurance Analyst works closely with product, development, design, infrastructure, and other QA team members to deliver reliable and accessible digital learning products. This role is responsible for testing web applications across the frontend and backend using manual, API, database, automation, accessibility, and performance testing methods.

The successful candidate will take part in quality activities throughout the software development lifecycle. This includes planning, design reviews, test preparation, testing, defect investigation, release validation, and production regression testing.

This position will primarily support product development. The QA Manager may also assign a portion of the analyst’s time to infrastructure, platform, performance, or other technical initiatives based on team priorities.

The regular work schedule is 1:00 PM to 9:00 PM Eastern Time to provide coverage for teams working in the Pacific Time Zone.

Responsibilities

• Create, maintain, and execute test plans, test scenarios, and test cases for web applications.
• Test frontend and backend functionality, including user interfaces, APIs, databases, integrations, and services.
• Perform functional, regression, smoke, exploratory, integration, usability, and cross browser testing.
• Find, reproduce, investigate, and document defects in Jira with clear steps, evidence, expected results, and actual results.
• Work closely with developers, product managers, designers, infrastructure engineers, and other stakeholders to investigate and resolve quality issues.
• Validate that completed work meets functional requirements, acceptance criteria, design expectations, and quality standards.
• Create, maintain, execute, and improve automated tests using Playwright or similar modern automation tools.
• Help improve the structure, reliability, coverage, and maintainability of the automated regression suite.
• Use AI coding assistants such as Claude Code, Codex, or similar tools to support test development, troubleshooting, documentation, and other QA activities when appropriate.
• Create and maintain clear QA documentation, testing standards, and reusable testing practices.
• Participate in release testing and help identify quality risks before changes are released.
• Stay familiar with the functionality of Nelson products and understand how educators and learners use them in the classroom.

Infrastructure, Observability and Performance Testing

The Senior QA Analyst may occasionally support infrastructure and platform testing. The goal is to help the team investigate issues using technical evidence and identify regressions before they reach customers.

• Use telemetry signals such as logs, traces, and metrics to support defect investigation, bug triage, and root cause analysis.
• Review distributed traces to identify suspicious backend calls, service interactions, API requests, or gRPC calls related to a reported issue.
• Use telemetry data to help confirm whether a reported problem is reproducible and to provide useful technical evidence to development and infrastructure teams.
• Create and execute load and performance tests using k6 or similar tools.
• Use load tests as part of regression testing to identify changes in application or service performance.
• Review performance measurements such as response time, throughput, error rate, and percentile latency including p95 latency.
• Compare performance results against previous results or established baselines to identify possible regressions.
• Work with developers and infrastructure engineers to investigate performance issues such as increased latency, excessive service calls, request fanout, or unexpected backend activity.
• Assist with release and production readiness testing when performance or infrastructure validation is required.

Requirements

Experience and Qualifications

• 4 or more years of professional experience in software quality assurance or software testing, preferably with web based applications.
• Strong experience testing modern web applications across both frontend and backend systems.
• Hands-on experience testing APIs, databases, integrations, and other backend services.
• Experience creating test plans, test strategies, test scenarios, and detailed test cases.
• Experience designing, writing, and maintaining automated tests. Experience with Playwright is strongly preferred.
• Good understanding of web application architecture, frontend and backend systems, APIs, databases, services, and common security concepts.
• Experience using Jira or a similar issue tracking system to manage defects and testing work.
• Experience working in Agile and Scrum development environments with designers, developers, product managers, and other QA professionals.
• Experience with accessibility testing and knowledge of AODA or related accessibility standards.
• Strong troubleshooting and analytical skills. Able to investigate an issue beyond the visible user interface and provide useful evidence to the team.
• Clear written and verbal communication skills. Able to explain defects and technical findings in simple and concise language.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and move between product, automation, release, and infrastructure testing when needed.
• Strong collaboration skills and the ability to work effectively with cross functional teams.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Working knowledge of application observability and telemetry, including logs, distributed traces, and metrics.
• Experience using observability tools such as Grafana, Datadog, OpenTelemetry, Application Insights, or similar platforms.
• Experience with performance and load testing using k6 or a similar tool.
• Ability to understand performance measurements such as p95 latency, throughput, response time, and error rate.
• Experience using telemetry and traces to support root cause analysis and defect investigation.
• Experience testing service based or microservice architectures, including REST APIs or gRPC services.
• Experience using AI coding assistants such as Claude Code, Codex, or similar tools as part of software development or QA workflows.
• Experience contributing to automation frameworks, continuous integration workflows, or automated regression pipelines.
• Experience testing education technology, content platforms, learning applications, or other customer facing digital products is an asset.

What Success Looks Like

A successful Senior QA Analyst can independently test complex features, clearly communicate risks, build reliable automated coverage, and help the team investigate issues across the full application stack. The analyst should be comfortable working with both product teams and technical infrastructure teams and should use testing data, automation, and telemetry to make quality decisions based on evidence.

Benefits

Compensation The base salary range for this contract position starts at $70,000 per annum based on experience. This position may also be eligible for performance-related incentive pay. Compensation is part of our broader Total Rewards package, which includes benefits and programs that support employee well-being and growth.

What We Offer

At Nelson, we believe in taking care of our people. Your well-being, growth, and work-life balance matter to us, which is why we offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support you—professionally and personally. The below benefits apply to this temporary contract position.

• This role comes with hybrid flexibility, M-F, standard business hours
• Commuter friendly location (Sheppard & Don Mills)
• Free parking on-site
• Free, convenient shuttle bus service from Don Mills Subway Station to and from the office
• Access to on-site fitness center and fitness classes
• Access to LinkedIn Learning for continuous skill growth
• Mentorship and professional development opportunities
• A comprehensive Employee Assistance Program (EAP) providing confidential support spanning from mental health services to financial counselling, and many things in-between.

Don't have 100% of the above qualifications? Do you still think Nelson is a great fit for you? We encourage you to apply anyway!

Our EDI Statement

Nelson teaches the world by learning from everyone in it.

• We are committed to fostering an equitable, diverse, and inclusive workplace environment. This is an integral part of our company’s culture and mission that aligns with our four key pillars of Employee Diversity, Developing Authentic and Accurate Content, Amplifying External Voices, and Supporting the Local Community and Beyond.
• We believe in the power of education and our ability to impact social change. Truth, honesty, integrity, and respect guide our decisions and actions in the development of learning solutions that empower success for all educators and learners.
• We value a respectful, inclusive, and safe workplace that nurtures belonging and represents many different cultures, backgrounds, perspectives, and opinions. Everyone is free to be who they are.
• We foster and continue to build relationships that are equitable, diverse, and inclusive with existing and future partners in education.
• We commit to holding ourselves accountable by creating measurable short and long-term goals that place equity, diversity, and inclusion at the core of what we do in our resources, the workplace, the educational community, and in the larger society.
• We strive to build an inclusive world for everyone . We are stronger together.

AI and Automated Hiring Tools

Nelson uses AI support tools in our applicant tracking system to help with tasks such as summarizing points and anonymizing applications. All candidate screening, assessments, and hiring decisions are done by people.

Interview Outcome Notification Nelson is committed to keeping candidates informed. All candidates who attend an interview for a publicly advertised role will be notified of the outcome of their candidacy. Candidates will be notified of the hiring decision no later than 45 days after the last interview.

Our Commitment

Nelson is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to Inclusion, Equity and Diversity. As part of this commitment, we do not discriminate on the basis of age, race, sex, gender, gender identity, colour, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, marital status, citizenship, veteran status, or disability status.

Should you require any accommodation during our recruitment and selection process, please reach out to peopleandengagement@nelson.com.