Software QA Engineer (First QA Hire)

Quality Assurance Engineer (First QA Hire) Boston, MA (Remote) We’re partnering with a growing, product-focused startup that is building a modern, data-driven platform and is now making their first dedicated QA hire. This is a high-impact opportunity to establish QA processes from the ground up and play a key role in shaping product quality as the company scales. They’re looking for a QA Engineer who thrives in startup environments, is highly hands-on with manual testing, and is excited to introduce structure, tooling, and best practices across the development lifecycle. What You’ll Do Own end-to-end quality across the product, from feature validation to release readiness Design and execute manual test plans, test cases, and exploratory testing across web applications Perform API testing (REST/GraphQL) using tools like Postman, Insomnia, or similar Partner closely with engineering and product to identify gaps in testing coverage and improve QA processes Introduce and integrate AI tools into QA workflows to improve efficiency (test generation, bug triage, etc.) Begin building out lightweight automation frameworks and expand test coverage over time What They’re Looking For 3–6+ years of QA or software testing experience, preferably in startup or fast-paced environments Strong experience with manual, end-to-end testing of web-based applications Hands-on API testing experience Experience working closely with engineers in agile environments Interest in leveraging AI tools to enhance QA workflows Strong communication skills and ability to operate with high ownership Nice to Have Experience with test automation tools such as Playwright, Cypress, or Selenium Exposure to CI/CD pipelines and integrating tests into deployment workflows Familiarity with modern JavaScript-based applications and frontend frameworks Why This Role First QA hire with the opportunity to define processes and standards High ownership and visibility across engineering and product Fast-moving startup environment with meaningful product impact Competitive compensation and growth opportunity