Quality Assurance Engineer

Project overview

Organizational Context

The COA (Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers) is responsible for the reception and guidance of asylum seekers in the Netherlands. Our services require reliable, transparent, and well-organized information provision. The ICT department plays a central role in this by setting up systems and processes that effectively contribute to our societal task. Information flows through connections: between our own applications and with our chain partners and municipalities. In the integration domain, Quality Assurance is still in its infancy, and that's where you come in.

As a Quality Assurance Engineer, you will set up automated testing of our integrations, using C#/.NET, Playwright, API tests, and Gherkin scenarios that run in Azure Pipelines. From within the QA guild, you will also help build our new test automation street.

Responsibilities

The COA is an organization in full motion: numbers change, legislation changes, and the political reality changes with it. Integrations are the central nervous system. If something breaks in a connection, a colleague on location notices it immediately, or a municipality does not receive the information they need. We want to avoid being dependent on manual testing precisely there. Your first assignment is therefore foundational work.

In the integration team, you will determine together with the developers what we test, at what level, and when something is "done." You will build automated tests for connections and APIs, record scenarios in Gherkin so that a product owner or functional manager can also read what we are checking, and ensure that these tests run reliably in Azure Pipelines. A red build must mean something. You will also collaborate with the other testers at COA ICT in the QA guild.

The guild is building a new test automation street, and you will lay the foundations for it: which frameworks, how we keep tests reusable across teams, how we report results. You work automation first: what is tested manually, you do once by hand and never again after that.

Concrete tasks and responsibilities

The Team

You will work in the integration team within COA ICT. This team is responsible for the connections through which our applications exchange information with each other and with chain partners and municipalities. The team consists of 5 Azure Integration Engineers, a Scrum Master, and a Product Owner. In the integration team, you will be the driving force for QA, but you are not alone. The testers at COA ICT collaborate in the QA guild: there we share knowledge, agree on standards, and work on professional development. As a senior QA Engineer, you will have a voice that makes a difference there.

Why QA Engineer at the COA?

The testing profession is not a side issue for us, and there is work to be done:

Who are you?

You are a tester at heart: you want to know how something works and especially where it goes wrong. You think critically without putting the brakes on, and you know when a risk is worth discussing and when you just solve it. You have an agile mindset and feel at home in an organization where priorities can shift. This role also requires someone who can get things done. You enjoy creating structure where it is still lacking, you are at the forefront of QA and test automation, and you bring others along in the approach you choose. You have:

Additional information

• You will set up QA within the integration domain: you will determine together with the team what we test, at what level, and with which agreements.
• You will design, build, and maintain automated tests for our connections and APIs in C#/.NET, and use Playwright where the chain is accessible via the user interface.
• You will record test scenarios in Gherkin, so that the discussion about quality is held with the entire team and not just between testers.
• You will contribute from the QA guild to the new test automation street and ensure that it is also usable for the other teams within COA ICT.
• You will set up test steps in Azure Pipelines and keep the test suite fast and stable, so we can release multiple times per sprint.
• You will be involved from the refinement stage and think critically about risks, acceptance criteria, and the testability of new connections.
• You will actively share your knowledge with developers and fellow testers, so that quality becomes a team responsibility.
• You will establish QA in a domain where it still needs to be implemented and help build a test street that does not yet exist.
• Integration is where the complexity lies: many parties, many connections, many dependencies.
• Your work directly impacts the daily practice of reception: an error you prevent is a problem that a colleague on location will not encounter.
• Minimum HBO work and thinking level.
• Minimum 8 years of relevant work experience as a tester or QA engineer.
• Demonstrable experience with test automation in C#/.NET.
• Experience with Playwright.
• Experience with API testing.
• Experience with Azure DevOps as the place where work, test cases, and results come together.
• Experience with AI-driven testing.
• Experience with recording test scenarios in Gherkin is a plus.
• Experience with setting up automated tests in Azure Pipelines is a plus.
• Hybrid working is possible; presence in The Hague is expected on two fixed days (in consultation).
• A Certificate of Conduct (VOG) is mandatory before starting the assignment.

Project details

• Start: 2026-11-30T23:00:00
• Location: Den Haag Zuid-Holland, NL
• Languages: Dutch