QA Engineer at Nationgraph

About NationGraph NationGraph is making public sector data accessible and actionable for businesses selling to cities, counties, state agencies, schools, and special districts. NationGraph’s data and intelligence engine provides buying signals derived from millions of public sector sources. Founded in 2024, NationGraph is dedicated to making uncommon knowledge common, because public data should actually be public. Learn more at nationgraph.com [Upgrade to PRO to see link] You’ll Join A Team That: - Has successfully built, scaled, and sold companies in the past. - Built software infrastructure processing billions of dollars in transactions. - Is backed by world-class VCs and operating partners who’ve invested in, and built, iconic companies. The Role We're hiring our first QA Engineer to own quality across the platform, from our customer-facing product to the data pipelines, browser-automation layer, and AI agents that power it. You'll define the testing strategy, build the automation, and put the processes in place that let a small engineering team ship fast without breaking things. This is a foundational hire. You won't be inheriting a QA org; you'll be building one. You'll own how quality works at NationGraph for years to come, and your standards will shape every product surface our customers touch. What You'll Do - Own the test strategy across our stack: frontend (React/Next.js), backend (Python/Go), APIs, browser automation, data pipelines, and AI agent workflows. - Design, build, and maintain automated test suites; end-to-end, integration, and unit-level using Playwright, Pytest, and modern JS/TS testing tools. - Stand up evals and regression checks for our LLM-powered agents. Define what "good output" looks like and catch regressions before they ship. - Run functional, regression, exploratory, and performance testing across web and API surfaces. - Verify data quality, freshness, and completeness across our scrapers and ingest pipelines, bad data is the worst kind of bug for our users. - Build and maintain CI/CD test infrastructure in GitHub Actions so every PR is gated by meaningful checks. - Partner with engineering, product, and data ops to define acceptance criteria and what "done" means for new features. - Triage incoming bugs, reproduce them cleanly, and drive them to resolution with the right team. - Establish QA processes, documentation, and quality metrics from the ground up. What You'll Bring - Strong test automation experience in Python (Pytest preferred) and at least one modern JS/TS testing framework. - Hands-on experience with browser automation (Playwright, Puppeteer, or Selenium), Playwright is what we use. - Solid API testing chops (Postman, schemathesis, REST Assured, or similar) and comfort writing your own integration tests against live services. - Comfort working in CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, CircleCI, or similar) and treating the pipeline as part of the product. - Fluency with Git, Postgres, and reading SQL well enough to verify what landed. - Sharp analytical and debugging skills, you find root causes, not just symptoms. - High agency and clear communication. You can walk into a small startup, decide what "good" looks like, and bring engineers along with you. - Comfortable working in person in a fast-moving environment where priorities can shift week to week. Bonus Points - Experience testing AI/LLM-powered systems, agents, or building eval pipelines. - Background testing data pipelines, scrapers, ETL, or any system where data correctness matters more than UI polish. - Performance and load testing experience (k6, Locust, or similar). - Security testing exposure (basic OWASP, fuzzing, auth flows). - Foundational quality hire experience at an early-stage startup. - BS or MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent. What You'll Get From Us: - Founder-Level Exposure. Work closely with the CEO/CTO on all aspects of the business. - A zero bureaucracy environment. We believe in moving extremely fast and making bold decisions without red tape. - We believe in working with great people with a diversity of thought, an eagerness to learn, a boldness to challenge the status quo, and a deep care for the work we put out. If you align with us here, we strive to shape the working environment as such. Benefits: - Competitive salary + early-stage equity 💰 - Unlimited PTO ✈️ - High-quality health insurance, dental & vision coverage 🏥 - Company provided lunches (Mon - Thur) 🍜 Our Interview Process We run a focused, high-signal process designed to be fast, thoughtful, and respectful of your time. Our goal is mutual clarity - not unnecessary hoops. Round 1: Intro Conversation (30 min video call) A short conversation to get to know each other. We’ll talk about your background, motivations, and what you’re looking for. You’ll learn more about us, the role, and how we work. Goal: Mutual fit and alignment on culture and values. Round 2: Deep Dive (30-60min) A working session where we explore your domain expertise and how you approach problems. This is not trivia or gotcha questions - we’re interested in how you think. Goal: Understand your depth, judgment, and problem-solving style. Round 3: Case Exercise (Take-home or live) A practical, real-world exercise that reflects the kind of work you’d do here. You may complete it asynchronously or live with us depending on the role. Goal: See what you can produce in your role. Round 4: Final Round You’ll spend with our founders, and dive deeper into how we’d work together. Goal: Final mutual evaluation and, if there’s strong alignment, an offer. Our Principles - Speed: We aim to move from round to offer quickly, we appreciate your time. - Respect: Every round has a clear purpose. No redundant interviews. - Signal over ceremony: We care more about what you’ve built and how you think than where you went to school. - Mutual evaluation: This is a two-way process. You’re interviewing us, too! - Bar-raising: Every hire should make the team stronger. When in doubt, we pass. We believe in-person work is our default. We’re building a team of people who desires to work side-by-side and shape the culture of a growing company. In our experiences, some of the best ideas come from being in the room, feeling the pain, hearing the nuance, and catching the details that are easy to miss. At the same time, we’re flexible and supportive when working-from-home is needed to maintain a healthy, balanced work environment.