Associate QA

About us

Appnovation is a global, full-service digital partner that combines Strategy, Experience & Design, Engineering and Managed Services. We build digital solutions that deliver real impact today and serve as foundations for future growth. Bold ambition. Practical action. Endless possibilities.

About the Role

As the QA Engineer on this project, you will be the embedded quality voice on a dedicated, cross-functional scrum team building a modern operational SaaS platform for K-12 education. The platform automates administrative processes for school divisions, so the testing problem is not primarily visual - it is correctness across multi-step workflows, asynchronous integrations, permission-sensitive views, and reporting data that district administrators will make decisions on.

Quality is embedded throughout delivery rather than a gate at the end. You will review stories for testability during refinement, write and execute test cases, build and maintain Playwright automation, and validate releases before they ship. You will work closely with the Technical Lead on test strategy for larger features, and take independent ownership of test execution, coverage, and defect management for the work in front of you.

This is a strong role for a QA engineer ready to broaden beyond UI test execution. You will get hands-on exposure to API and integration testing against .NET services, multi-tenant permission testing under Keycloak and OpenFGA, and validating data that flows from PostgreSQL into a ClickHouse analytics store. The platform is moving from pilot deployments toward general availability, with support available from the Technical Lead and senior engineers as you take on more of the harder testing problems.

Key Responsibilities:

Reviewing stories and acceptance criteria for testability during refinement, and asking questions where requirements are unclear or incomplete

Writing, executing, and maintaining functional test cases covering happy paths, edge cases, and negative scenarios

Building and maintaining Playwright end-to-end automation for user journeys, working within the established framework and patterns

Performing API testing against .NET REST endpoints, including request/response validation, error handling, and permission behaviour

Testing role- and permission-based access across the UI and API, including verifying that restricted actions are correctly denied

Executing multi-tenant test scenarios to confirm data is correctly scoped per school division, working from strategy defined with the Technical Lead

Testing multi-step and long-running processes, including validating that the application behaves correctly when a process fails, retries, or resumes

Validating reporting and analytics output against source data using SQL queries

Conducting browser-based and responsive testing across supported devices and breakpoints

Performing accessibility testing against WCAG 2.x Level AA using automated tooling and manual keyboard navigation

Reporting defects with clear reproduction steps, environment detail, and severity assessment, and retesting fixes in Jira

Maintaining traceability between acceptance criteria, test coverage, and defects

Supporting release validation and production verification after deployment

Keeping automated tests running reliably in GitLab CI/CD, and investigating failures rather than re-running them

Maintaining test cases and testing notes in Confluence as part of the definition of done

Following established test practices and avoiding brittle patterns - hard-coded waits, unstable selectors, shared test-state dependencies, and environment-specific assumptions

Participating in refinement, planning, review, and retrospective as a member of a self-directed scrum team

What we are looking for

Must-Have:

At least 3 years of QA experience testing web applications

Hands-on experience writing and maintaining automated tests in Playwright, Cypress, or Selenium

Experience testing web applications with real business logic - forms, workflows, dashboards - rather than primarily content or marketing sites

Practical API testing experience, including validating REST responses, status codes, and error handling

Experience testing applications where user permissions or roles change what is visible and available

Basic to intermediate SQL - able to write queries to verify data rather than relying only on the UI

Ability to write clear, reproducible defect reports that developers can act on without follow-up

Experience writing test cases from acceptance criteria

Familiarity with running automated tests in a CI/CD pipeline and investigating failures

Awareness of WCAG 2.x Level AA and experience with basic accessibility checks

Comfortable working within an existing test suite, framework, and set of team standards

Experience working in agile delivery with refinement, planning, review, and retrospective

Willingness to raise quality concerns clearly, including when there is delivery pressure

Must be located in British Columbia, Canada

Technologies

End-to-End Automation: Playwright (or Cypress / Selenium), test data management

Component and Unit Testing: exposure to Jest / Vitest, React Testing Library

API Testing: REST validation, Postman or equivalent, OpenAPI/Swagger contracts

Data Validation: SQL against PostgreSQL; exposure to ClickHouse for reporting verification

Identity and Authorization Testing: Keycloak, OpenFGA, OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, role- and policy-based access, multi-tenant scoping

Workflow and Async Testing: Temporal workflows, worker services, event-driven pub/sub

Accessibility: axe, Lighthouse, keyboard navigation, WCAG 2.x Level AA

Cross-Browser and Responsive: device emulation, breakpoint validation

CI/CD and Tooling: GitLab, GitLab CI/CD, Docker

Work Management and Documentation: Jira, Jira Service Management, Confluence, test case management

Application Context: Next.js, React, TypeScript, C#, .NET Core

Nice to Have

Experience defining feature-level test strategy independently

Experience designing multi-tenant isolation test approaches

Hands-on experience testing Temporal or another workflow orchestration engine

Familiarity with asynchronous and eventually consistent systems, and how to test them without relying on sleeps

Familiarity with fine-grained authorization models (OpenFGA, Zanzibar-style ReBAC)

Familiarity with C# and .NET, or with TypeScript and React

Experience with visual regression testing

Experience with performance or load testing

Experience with columnar or OLAP stores such as ClickHouse

Experience with Canadian public-sector or education accessibility and data privacy requirements (AODA and provincial equivalents, PIPEDA, provincial FIPPA)

SaaS product delivery experience, particularly through a pilot-to-GA transition

Experience using AI-assisted testing tools to accelerate coverage and maintenance

Experience in a consulting or client-facing delivery environment

ISTQB certification or equivalent

Who you are

You are a meticulous quality advocate who thinks in edge cases and failure modes, and who would rather find the problem than be told the build is fine.

You collaborate rather than gatekeep - you raise risk early, ask questions when something does not add up, and work with developers to prevent defects rather than just catalogue them.

You are actively growing your craft, and you want a role where you will get hands-on with API, integration, and permissions testing rather than only UI validation.

What Appnovation Offers

Challenging and rewarding work with real impact

Direct Access to Cutting-Edge AI Platforms

Diverse and Inclusive Culture

Growth opportunities for personal and professional development

A collaborative and innovative work environment where your ideas are valued

Exposure to exciting projects and h