QA Engineer (Onsite In Milwaukee, WI)

About the position We are seeking an experienced Contract Quality Analyst to join a collaborative delivery team responsible for providing technology solutions for our Global Investment Banking team at Baird. This role partners closely with developers, product owners, and stakeholders to understand upcoming changes, identify risk, design right-sized test approaches, and ensure high‑quality outcomes without slowing delivery. The ideal candidate brings strong QA judgment, a pragmatic mindset, and the ability to adapt testing depth based on risk, business impact, and system complexity. This role values speed with purpose—focusing on meaningful validation rather than rigid process—and contributes to continuous improvement across the team. We currently have two delivery squads and expect continued growth through both additional hires and consulting support. While much of the work is Salesforce focused, we have additional initiatives outside of Salesforce.

Responsibilities

• Analyze business and technical requirements early to ensure clarity, testability, and shared understanding.
• Partner with product owners, developers, and architects to identify risk, dependencies, and appropriate test scope.
• Apply risk‑based testing techniques to determine where deeper validation is required versus where lighter validation is sufficient.
• Design pragmatic test approaches aligned to system complexity, data sensitivity, and change impact.
• Contribute to improvements in QA practices, tooling, and automation where it increases efficiency and confidence.
• Actively participate in design reviews and story refinement to identify gaps, clarify acceptance criteria, improve testability, usability, etc.
• Identify, source, and manage high-quality, compliant test data, ensuring adherence to data privacy and security standards (e.g., synthetic data strategies).
• Coordinate test environment and test data readiness, including environment dependencies, build readiness, and release timing, to ensure testing can proceed without unnecessary delays.
• Coordinate testing activities across cross‑functional teams to support consistent quality outcomes.
• Coach and enable developers, peers, and team members to improve testing practices, quality awareness, and shared ownership of quality outcomes.
• Design and execute manual and automated tests covering functional, integration, regression, and data scenarios.
• Perform exploratory and scenario-based testing to uncover edge cases and high‑risk defects.
• Validate end-to-end business processes, including integrations across upstream/downstream systems and third-party vendors.
• Ensure data integrity and expected system behavior across environments.
• Coordinate and support user acceptance testing and release readiness activities, clearly communicate necessary information to stakeholders and delivery team.
• Provide clear quality status and go/no‑go release recommendations based on test results and observed risk.
• Own the defect lifecycle, including clear documentation, prioritization, and collaboration with the delivery team and stakeholders through resolution.
• Communicate quality risks, defects, and concerns with appropriate context and business impact. Able to do this at all levels, including leadership.
• Perform root cause analysis to help prevent recurring issues.
• Use defect trends and retrospective insights to improve future delivery cycles.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience practicing Quality Assurance within Lean‑Agile delivery environments.
• Strong understanding of test heuristics, fundamental and advanced testing techniques, and industry best practices.
• Significant experience testing complex applications across UI, API, integration, and data layers, including functional, end‑to‑end, and regression scenarios.
• Working knowledge of application‑level data flows, APIs, and system integrations.
• Proven ability to collaborate effectively with product owners, developers, and architects.
• Strong analytical, prioritization, and communication skills.
• Ability to adapt testing approaches to balance speed, risk, and quality.
• Ability to effectively influence quality outcomes with both technical and non‑technical stakeholders.
• Continuous learner with the ability to quickly understand new domains and technologies.
• Experience contributing to or maintaining automated tests using common QA automation tools; ability to read and write test scripts is a plus.
• Understanding of CI/CD principles and practices.
• Strong systems-thinking mindset with the ability to solve complex problems, prioritize effectively, and manage time in a fast-moving environment.
• Proficiency with databases and SQL queries.
• Experience testing Salesforce‑based solutions and related integrations.
• Experience with web and mobile testing.
• Experience with HTML, JavaScript/TypeScript, C#/Java, and SQL.
• Fintech or related domain experience.

Nice-to-haves

• Salesforce expertise is valued, but strong QA judgment and delivery experience are more important than deep specialization in any single platform.

Benefits

• Medical, dental & vision
• Critical Illness, Accident, and Hospital
• 401(k) Retirement Plan – Pre-tax and Roth post-tax contributions available
• Life Insurance (Voluntary Life & AD&D for the employee and dependents)
• Short and long-term disability
• Health Spending Account (HSA)
• Transportation benefits
• Employee Assistance Program
• Time Off/Leave (PTO, Vacation or Sick Leave)

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