A cover letter and resume are important submissions for the hiring team to get a sense of your experience. In the cover letter, in two pages or less, please let us know how this role aligns with your career aspirations and skill set. Submit both a cover letter and resume as one file (because of system limitations).

Through curricular innovation, tools for student success, and educational research and analytics, the University of Michigan Center for Academic Innovation is building the future of education. Our vision is a future in which education connects and empowers learners everywhere to reach their full potential throughout their lives. To realize our vision, we make it our mission to collaborate across campus and around the world to create equitable, lifelong educational opportunities for learners everywhere.

The Michigan Online Product Engineering team is a newly formed, dynamic group of developers, designers, and product specialists at the heart of the Center for Academic Innovation. Our mission is to design, build, and scale the Michigan Online platform to serve 25 million learners worldwide. Organized into squads focused on the Learner Innovation, Platform, Data & Infrastructure, and Assurance, we are responsible for the entire product lifecycle. We are a collaborative, agile team dedicated to creating a world-class, data-driven, and personalized destination for online education.
 

For more information, please visit our website: Academic Innovation.

Quality Engineering and Test Execution

• Define and implement comprehensive testing strategies across all product squads
• Assist with unit testing for web, mobile, and API testing
• Collaborate with engineers to establish release readiness criteria and quality gates, balancing speed with reliability
• Design test approaches for complex integrations (Canvas, edX, NLP, payment systems)
• Track quality metrics and drive continuous improvement through data-driven insights
• Support accessibility compliance (WCAG 2.1 AA) and inclusive user experiences
• Prioritize testing efforts based on risk assessment and business value

Technical Excellence and Infrastructure

• Architect front-end test automation using modern frameworks (Playwright, Cypress, Python)
• Integrate automated test suites (unit, integration, E2E) into CI/CD pipelines using tools like Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or CircleCI to enable continuous validation and rapid feedback
• Implement performance, security, and reliability testing strategies
• Maintain test environments, test data management strategies, and implement synthetic monitoring to proactively identify performance and availability issues
• Debug complex multi-system issues and coordinate resolution
• Champion testing best practices including shift-left

Cross-Squad Collaboration and Mentorship

• Partner with others in engineering to improve code testability and testing standards
• Collaborate with product managers and developers on acceptance criteria and test scenarios
• Support all squads with specialized testing needs (CMS, data pipelines, A/B tests)
• Facilitate bug triage and coordinate cross-team issue resolution
• Communicate testing status and quality insights to stakeholders

As a Quality Assurance Engineer, you will report to the Senior Quality Assurance Engineer and execute the quality strategy and testing responsibilities across all product squads, ensuring U of M's Center for Academic Innovation's products remains reliable, scalable, and learner-centered. You will design and implement automation frameworks, oversee release readiness, and balance automated and manual testing to deliver exceptional user experiences. Acting as a hands-on engineer you will integrate quality practices into every stage of development, strengthen continuous integration and deployment pipelines, and champion test automation as part of our DevOps culture. You will contribute to quality metrics, provide data-driven analysis of those metrics, and serve as a guardian of production stability while enabling teams to innovate and release confidently at scale.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience
• 1 - 3 years of professional QA/testing experience as an engineer, analyst, or other testing roles
• Strong test automation experience with modern frameworks and languages:
  • Web automation: Selenium, Cypress, Playwright, or similar
  • API testing: REST, GraphQL, Postman, or similar tools
  • Programming: Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, or Java

  • Mobile testing experience (iOS/Android) is a plus

     

• Proficiency with version control (Git) and experience with CI/CD tools (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, CircleCI) is a plus 

• Strong understanding of testing methodologies (functional, integration, regression, UAT)  

  and experience with performance testing tools (JMeter, K6, LoadRunner) is a plus.

• Experience testing in cloud environments is a plus (AWS, Azure, GCP)
• Proficiency with SQL for data validation and test verification
• Experience with agile/scrum methodologies and working in cross-functional teams
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with attention to detail
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to learn and appropriately use new technologies to improve processes, communication, and outcomes, including AI-enabled tools where relevant to the role, consistent with university policy and job responsibilities.

The work requirements allow both onsite and offsite work and an employee has an expected recurring onsite presence. On occasion, the employee may be required and must be available to work onsite more frequently if necessitated by unit leadership or their designee and/or the job requirements.
 

The mode of work for this position is Hybrid with a minimum of 4 days in the office per week, Monday through Thursday, with an option of remote work on Fridays. On occasion, you may be required and must be available to work onsite on Fridays if necessitated by our center's policy and domain leadership or by your job requirements.

Must have legal authorization to work in the United States.

The salary for this position will be based upon the selected candidate's education and experience.

Excellent benefits are available, for details, see http://benefits.umich.edu/

We support the creative, responsible, and ethical use of AI tools to enhance our work, in alignment with institutional policies and best practices.
 

Salary Information

The general salary range for this position is $75,000 - $80,000. Candidates can expect to be paid a competitive and equitable salary. Factors used to determine salary include education level, experience, knowledge and skills for the position and internal equity within the unit. All candidates are encouraged to discuss salary questions to honor alignment and transparency throughout the recruiting process.

Organizational Statement on Harassment

We believe all individuals deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and have the right to work in a professional atmosphere that promotes mutual respect and a safe space for collaboration. Any concerns shared with all non-confidential U-M employees (staff and student employees) in the Center for Academic Innovation will be reported to the Equity, Civil Rights, & Title IX Office to be reviewed and addressed, and the Center for Academic Innovation encourages reporting of any forms of harassment including sexual and gender-based harassment.

The University of Michigan conducts background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer and may use a third party administrator to conduct background checks. Background checks will be performed in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Job openings are posted for a minimum of seven calendar days. This job may be removed from posting boards and filled anytime after the minimum posting period has ended.

Applications will be reviewed as received throughout the posting period and continue until the position is filled.

The University of Michigan is an equal employment opportunity employer.