Quality Assurance Analyst

Merkle is a leading data-driven, technology-enabled, global performance marketing agency that specializes in the delivery of unique, personalized customer experiences across platforms and devices. For more than 30 years, Fortune 1000 companies and leading nonprofit organizations have partnered with Merkle to maximize the value of their customer portfolios. The agency’s heritage in data, technology, and analytics forms the foundation for its unmatched skills in understanding consumer insights that drive people-based marketing strategies. Its combined strengths in performance media, customer experience, customer relationship management, loyalty, and enterprise marketing technology drive improved marketing results and competitive advantage. With 9,600+ employees, Merkle is headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, with 50+ additional offices throughout the US, EMEA, and APAC. In 2016, the agency joined the Dentsu Aegis Network. For more information, contact Merkle at 1-877-9-Merkle or visit www.merkleinc.com.

Merkle is seeking applicants to work in Agile project team settings handling a variety of QA responsibilities.

Quality Assurance Analysts at Merkle must be analytical problem solvers with strong written and verbal communication skills. Candidates must be self-starters, detail oriented, and able to quickly learn and apply new knowledge in a fast-paced, client-driven environment.

QA Analysts work closely with QA Leads, Functional Leads and Project Managers to verify all requirements are in order to ensure deliverables are developed to specs. They are responsible for test execution, issue identification, and verification of defect remediation in multiple configurations, environments, and phases. The candidates must have a thorough understanding of QA processes and defect tracking. They should be comfortable working with a variety of teams and individuals, including user experience, creative, technical, and program management as well as our partners and customers.

Responsibilities

Testing and Operation

• Create test cases and scripts under direction of QA Leads to verify business, functional, and non-functional requirements for all test phases of the project
• Assist QA Leads to execute tests with tools and techniques for functional testing, integration testing, system testing, regression testing and compatibility testing in multiple test configurations and environments
• Identify problems and log defects, and communicate regularly with developers and team leads to ensure proper resolution
• Verify bug fixes, regression test software, and smoke-test solutions
• Document test data, analyze test results, and make recommendation on how to refine the system to better suit user needs and expectations
• Assist in gathering requirements, modeling use cases, writing user stories, writing acceptance criteria on an as needed basis
• Utilize and promote QA best practices across functions

Technical Understanding

• Understand leading-edge web application technologies, including web applications, native mobile applications and n-tier architectures
• Experience querying databases to create and validate test data using SQL tools
• Ability to verify front-end applications (web and mobile), database, and back-end services to ensure overall quality of solutions
• Experience in web, mobile web, and/or native mobile applications for one or more of the following: CMS-driven corporate sites, high-traffic consumer sites, B2B sites, commerce platforms, employee portals or marketing platforms
• Ability to learn new tools for testing the activities of a QA program

Communication

• Communicate outstanding issues, risks and possible roadblocks to QA Lead and team
• Present written and oral communications in an organized and structured manner
• Maintain consistent dialogue with development and design teams throughout development and test cycles in order to assist defect remediation processes
• Clearly articulate the steps required to reproduce a bug with accompanying details (screenshots, test data, etc.)

Required Experience/Skills

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent
• 2+ years of direct QA experience as a tester
• Consulting experience delivering solutions (web and mobile) at an enterprise scale
• Experience serving as the functional subject matter expert on projects based on previous experience and/or the ability to quickly learn and become the resident expert
• Experience in object-oriented programming (C++, Java, Ruby, etc.) a big plus
• Experience with marketing, marketing technology, growth, analytics, A/B testing, personalization, or conversion rate optimization programs a big plus

• Thorough understanding of QA processes and test types in software development life cycles, including but not limited to component, integration, system, functional, non-functional, user acceptance, and regression testing
• Ability to work from requirements and design specifications to develop and execute test specifications and test scripts across multiple data-intensive applications
• Sound understanding of issue tracking, issue management and test status reporting
• Fundamental understanding of requirements gathering processes, tools and templates
• Fundamental understanding of functional test planning and documentation
• Fundamental understanding of documentation review, gap analysis, and user-centered design processes and associated assets, including requirements, wireframes, design comps, test cases, etc.
• Fundamental understanding of data analytic concepts and testing
• Fundamental understanding of data verification, web service inspection, and log inspection

At Merkle, we believe that a diverse environment improves us as a community and as a business. We want to foster an environment of growth, where all ideas and contributions are encouraged. We need this culture of courage to continue to thrive in our fast-paced industry. We embrace differences of opinion. We value diversity of experience and thought, which help us to challenge and define industry-leading solutions, and support our goal of being a great place to work.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

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