"Quality & Support Engineer"

ABOUT US

The Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE) is dedicated to solving education's greatest challenges. Through rigorous research, model training programs and partnerships with educators worldwide, we're pursuing equitable, accessible and effective learning for all. The GSE is a top-ranked school of education, known for its prestigious faculty, rigorous graduate degree programs, and its impact on the quality of education across the world. The GSE is committed to developing leaders in education research, practice and policy. Our community includes over 60 faculty, 400 students, 230 staff, 14,000 alumni and countless individuals from the local and global communities that we work with and impact.

The Rapid Online Assessment of Reading (ROAR) is an open-source, online reading assessment platform that is designed to bridge research and practice. Our vision is to develop and validate a suite of efficient and automated online assessment for use in research and practice. This technology has the potential to dramatically change the landscape of research into learning differences and as well as educational practice by allowing researchers to rapidly collect data at an unprecedented scale and for school districts to efficiently assess students without sacrificing instructional time. More information on the ROAR can be found here: https://roar.stanford.edu/ ; more information on the Brain Development and Education Lab can be found here: https://www.brainandeducation.com/ ; and open-source software projects from the lab can be found here: https://github.com/YeatmanLab.

Core to our team’s mission are:

• Research-Practice Partnership model: Develop technology that catalyzes research while supporting practitioners. We envision a collaborative research model where stakeholders (i.e., teachers and administrators) are critical players in the research and design process.
• Transparency and open-access: Create technology that meets a critical need in diverse school districts and can be used under an open-access, not-for-profit model.

POSITION SUMMARY

Reporting to the Director of Innovation and Technology in Professor Yeatman’s Brain Development and Education Lab, the Quality & Support Engineer plays a key role in ensuring the reliability, usability, and day-to-day operation of the ROAR platform.

This role combines quality assurance and regression testing with first-line technical support. The Quality & Support Engineer serves as an initial point of contact for reported issues, working closely with ROAR’s Account Manager to triage incoming tickets, reproduce bugs, respond to straightforward user issues, and escalate confirmed defects or complex problems to the engineering team. In addition, this role partners closely with Product and Engineering to validate new features, execute smoke and regression testing, and help ensure high-quality releases.

The ideal candidate is detail-oriented, technically curious, and interested in learning how production web applications are tested, supported, and improved in a real-world educational research environment. This role focuses on quality assurance and support, requiring technical investigation and clear communication. It may include limited, well-scoped code contributions when appropriate, but ownership of production systems remains with senior engineers.

CORE DUTIES:

Quality Assurance & Testing

• Attend daily engineering team scrum meetings
• Execute structured manual regression tests prior to releases
• Perform exploratory testing of new or updated features
• Validate bug fixes in staging and production environments
• Develop, follow, and maintain QA checklists, test plans, and documentation
• Identify usability issues, regressions, and edge cases across browsers and devices
• Participate in pre-release validation (smoke testing) to confirm production readiness

Support & Ticket Triage

• Serve as a first-line responder for incoming support and bug tickets
• Reproduce reported issues and gather necessary details (environment, steps, evidence)
• Respond directly to straightforward issues such as user error or known limitations
• Escalate confirmed bugs or complex issues to engineering with clear documentation
• Coordinate closely with the Account Manager to track issues and communicate status

Bug Reporting & Coordination

• File clear, actionable bug reports including steps to reproduce, expected vs. actual behavior, browser/device/environment details, screenshots or screen recordings
• Track issue status and verify fixes once deployed
• Help identify recurring issues or patterns in reported bugs

A successful candidate should have enthusiasm about the ROAR mission in addition to:

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS:

Education & Experience:
Bachelor's degree and experience testing or supporting web applications or a combination of education and relevant experience.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Strong written communication skills and attention to detail
• Comfort following structured checklists and procedures
• Technical fluency with web applications and browsers
• Familiarity with modern web applications and how frontend and backend systems interact
• Ability to use browser developer tools (console, network tab) to investigate and document issues
• Ability to distinguish between user error and software defects
• Ability to clearly document issues and reproduce bugs reliably
• Ability to work collaboratively with engineering and non-technical stakeholders
• Interest in educational technology, research software, or mission-driven work

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Experience with bug tracking or ticketing systems (e.g., GitHub Issues, Jira, Zendesk)
• Familiarity with browser developer tools (console, network tab)
• Experience testing web applications across different browsers or devices
• Exposure to accessibility testing (keyboard navigation, focus states)
• Exposure to JavaScript or web application development concepts (e.g., client/server interactions, REST APIs)
• Experience reading error messages, stack traces, or network responses when diagnosing issues
• Experience working in or supporting an educational or research environment

PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:

• Constantly perform desk-based computer tasks, grasp lightly/fine manipulation.
• Frequently sitting.
• Occasionally stand/walk, use a telephone.
• Rarely writing by hand, lift/carry/push/pull objects that weigh up to 10 pounds.
• Strong visual acuity.

* - Consistent with its obligations under the law, the University will provide reasonable accommodation to any employee with a disability who requires accommodation to perform the essential functions of the job.*

WORKING CONDITIONS:

This is a Remote position.

This role is open to candidates anywhere in the United States. Stanford University has five Regional Pay Structures. The compensation for this position will be based on the location of the successful candidate.

The expected pay range for this position is $33.44 to $38.46 per hour.