QA tester (Contract)

At AREA 17, we believe we can help the world be more open, resilient, and optimistic. We work with clients we trust and admire across various industries, including Saint Laurent, OpenAI, the International Energy Agency, Fondation Louis Vuitton, and The New York Times. We build long-term partnerships by delivering value through brand, experience, and technology.

We are seeking an experienced QA tester to join us on a temporary contract basis to support quality assurance on an ongoing project.

Engagement details

• Type: Temporary contract
• Commitment: 25% per week
• Timeline: mid-May through June 30, with potential to extend
• Location: Must be based in the United States for the full duration of the contract. NYC metro area preferred; remote within the US considered for the right candidate
• Working hours: Some availability during US Eastern business hours to attend standups and team meetings

About the role

As QA Tester, you ensure our products are performant and accessible before they ship. You will triage incoming bugs, validate fixes, run regression and compatibility testing, and ensure that issues raised by the team or clients are thoroughly documented and resolved. You will work closely with developers, Technical Directors, and project stakeholders to keep the product stable, performant, and ready for users. 

Responsibilities

• Oversee quality control of the application, addressing bugs raised by internal team members and clients. 
• Perform regression testing and cross-browser, cross-device, and cross-platform compatibility checks after each deployment to ensure no existing functionality is broken. 
• Develop and maintain test cases, test plans, and QA checklists tied to application features and releases. 
• Create user and administrator stories in requirements documentation
• Log all bugs and errors in Jira (or other ticketing system), ensuring comprehensive documentation.
• Escalate critical or blocker-level bugs promptly to the appropriate stakeholders and track status and resolution efforts. 
• Review and triage all client-reported issues, validating, prioritizing, and routing them within Jira for efficient resolution.
• Verify bug fixes once resolved by the development team and close out tickets with clear acceptance notes. 
• Attend key project meetings and actively contribute QA status updates and risks. 
• Collaborate with Technical Director on monitoring application performance, helping to identify regressions, slowdowns, or anomalies in production and pre-production environments.

Required skills and experience

• 3+ years of professional QA/software testing experience on web and/or mobile applications. 
• Strong understanding of QA methodologies including functional testing, regression testing, smoke testing, exploratory testing, and UAT. 
• Experience with automated testing frameworks such as Playwright and Pest
• High proficiency in writing in the English language
• Hands-on experience writing clear, reproducible bug reports and managing tickets in Jira (or comparable tools such as Linear, Asana, GitHub, or Azure). 
• Proficiency with cross-browser and cross-device testing across modern browsers and on iOS and Android. 
• Strong communication skills and the ability to translate technical issues for non-technical stakeholders and vice versa. 
• Strong attention to detail and organized approach to testing. 
• Comfort working within Agile/Scrum workflows, including participating in standups, sprint planning, and backlog grooming. 
• Ability to work autonomously, manage your own time, and proactively flag blockers.

Candidates must be located within the United States. Internationally-based candidates will not be considered.

This is a 1099 contractor position. Project fee range $3000-8500, depending on final scope, timeline, and experience.