Quality Assurance Manager

Job Description

Quality Assurance (QA) Manager

Department: PBS KIDS

Status: Full-time/Project/Exempt. This position is fully funded through September 30, 2022, and may be renewed on receipt of additional federal appropriations approval annually through September 30, 2025.

Supervisor: Sr. Program Manager, RTL - PBS KIDS

Position Overview:

The PBS KIDS Digital team is seeking an experienced and highly motivated Quality Assurance (QA) Manager to lead QA activities across a wide range of initiatives within the PBS KIDS games and distribution channels portfolio. From test planning and execution to risk management and process improvement, you will play a critical role in defining, implementing, and optimizing a QA strategy that will be fundamental to our success. This position is funded by the Ready to Learn (RTL) grant from the U.S Department of Education. The Ready To Learn project is a joint initiative of PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) focusing on the development and dissemination of content across media to improve learning, with an emphasis on building career readiness and literacy skills for children ages 2-8.

PBS KIDS develops educational games designed for kids 2-8 years old that reflect the curriculum goals, stories, and characters in PBS KIDS shows. The game content library consists of over 200 educational HTML5 games. In addition to this content production pipeline, PBS builds and maintains a number of digital products to enable content distribution, such as pbskids.org and the PBS KIDS Games App. These products reach millions of users per month across a wide variety of devices. PBS KIDS is constantly releasing updates to these products to improve user experience, update technologies, fix bugs, and other business reasons.
Our ideal candidate has experience working with web and mobile game technologies across diverse teams, is detail-oriented, and is passionate about digital media and delivering the highest quality experience across the many devices that kids, parents, caregivers, and educators use to access PBS KIDS.

Key responsibilities will include, but are not limited to:
• Serve as the primary testing liaison between internal and external teams (e.g., 3rd party vendor, content managers, product managers, developers) and manage all quality assurance activities that test the functionality and integrity of the PBS KIDS games and distribution channels portfolio.

• Manage external vendor relationships by tracking budgets and SOW alignment for current QA projects, and leading SOW development, contracting, and budgeting for future QA projects.

• Review business/functional requirements, game design documents, and technical specifications; provide feedback on any requirements or design ambiguity, and identify areas to be tested.

• Lead and maintain the PBS KIDS device support and testbed strategy.

• Coordinate and manage test case development, planning and scheduling of test cycles, and test execution across the portfolio.

• Design and execute specialized and/or novel test cases, as needed (e.g., accessibility features, A/B testing program, Learning Analytics program).

• Analyze results of tests and determine the cause of failures.

• Use test management and defect tracking tools to create and track the progress of defects to resolution.

• Proactively identify and communicate risks, inefficiencies, and improvements for all QA activities.

• Represent QA in organization-wide meetings, and report status to senior management as needed.

• Perform analysis and identify candidates for future test automation, and identify the appropriate technology required for effective test automation.

• Partner with internal and external teams to define, implement, and optimize our QA strategy, best practices, and process changes across our distribution channels.

Requirements for success:
• Minimum five years of relevant experience in quality assurance (mobile and web game technologies, a plus).

• Demonstrated management experience across diverse functions (e.g., direct reports, cross-functional teams, 3rd party vendors). Managing remote teams in different time zones and countries, a plus.

• Bachelor's degree in a related discipline. An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered.

• Ability to serve as a resourceful, self-directed, and creative problem-solver who can meet aggressive and overlapping deadlines.

• Exceptional communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to provide explanations of technical issues, status, and project risks in a timely manner and with precision.

• Experience working in common software development methodologies (e.g., Agile, Waterfall, Kanban).

• Experience with accessibility testing and assistive technologies, a plus.

• Experience with crowdsourced testing, a plus.

• Familiarity with children's privacy guidelines, a plus (e.g., COPPA, FERPA).

• Must have received or be willing to receive the COVID-19 vaccination by date of hire to be considered. Proof of vaccination required.

PBS is an Equal Opportunity Employer in accordance with the EEOC and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-r7jqm9-18-224-246-203-42 in your application.