Accessibility Engineer in Quality Assurance

Blind Institute of Technology is searching for a new Accessibility Enginneer with a focus in Quality Assurance (QA) who will play a vital role in achieving our cleint's goals to make their product fully accessible. Our client is looking for an experienced QA professional, who may or may not identify as having a disability , who understands accessibility best practices and can actively use it to lead them into a more agile, innovative and accessible future.


An Accessibility (A11y) QA Engineer is responsible for supporting Quality Assurance teams to ensure successful integration of accessibility principles and practices into manual and automated testing in order to deliver accessible digital products. The person filling this role brings a depth of technical knowledge that complements and strengthens a culture early in its adoption of a11y practices throughout the QA process. An A11y QA Engineer will apply accessibility knowledge to a wide range of digital properties including, but not limited to, responsive websites, mobile applications, and digital documents. This role will partner with Product Design, Design System teams, Engineering Leads, and QA Leads to develop, promote, and ensure the adoption and integration of accessibility policies, procedures, and standards.


Opportunities are available in Chantilly, VA and Burlington, MA. This is not a remote opportunity.


Responsibilities

Build capacity in the QA process to include A11y into manual and automated testing by:
Help teams understand how users experience products using Assistive Technology.
Help teams understand what to test for and how to test to ensure feature functionality meets A11y AC (Acceptance Criteria).
Help teams find and understand answers to technical how-to questions on testing A11y for Web, IOS & Android apps.
Stay up-to-date on current and existing trends in the accessibility space.
Ensuring Engineering QA testing meets A11y AC through:
Recommend, support implementation and training of A11y testing tools within the testing process and environment.
Ensuring A11y AC is reflected in QA plans.
Support QA testing to validate A11y AC is met.
Validate A11y AC is met through key feature testing.
Support 3rd-Party A11y Audits by:
Reviewing 3rd-Party findings and test results.
Challenging and verifying questionable reported findings.
Triage and prioritizing A11y issues.
Analyze validation test results and make recommendations for:
A11y training opportunities.
QA pracitces in need of A11y refinements.
Processes lacking appropriate level of A11y support.


Qualifications

Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent working knowledge and experience.
5+ years experience in QA.
3+ years experience in A11y.
Proven experience with QA tools such as Selenium, Sauce Labs, and Cucumber.
Proven experience partnering with various cross-functional teams for direction and consistency.
Demonstrate thinking from an end-user perspective.
Commitment to meeting high expectations of end users .
Excellent organizational and communication skills.
Proven knowledge and experience with responsive Web Design and mobile apps.
Experience using Rally, Teams, Confluence and other cooperation tools.
Proven ability to test with common screen readers (JAWS, NVDA, MAC/IOS VoiceOver, TalkBack), keyboard only, and other assistive technology.
Ability to train and coach colleagues on various accessibility topics.
Ability to promote and support the importance of accessibility.
Ability to interpret and advise on standards, principles and techniques for meeting accessibility success criteria (including WCAG 2.0 AA and WCAG 2.1 AA).
Knowledge of mobile accessibility best practices on Android and iOS.


Preferred Skills

Understanding and experience with the Agile process.
Understanding the overlap between user experience and accessibility.
Experience supporting products in a SAFe environment - specifically how current/future work is scheduled to come through planning, design, engineering and 3rd-party validation efforts.


Preferred Certifications

IAAP CPACC