About the role
The role involves providing customer support during tax filing season and transitioning to quality assurance testing for the remainder of the year. Responsibilities include managing test cases, diagnosing software issues, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to ensure product quality.
What they look for
Requirements
Candidates must have at least three filing seasons of experience in TaxHawk Customer Support and a working knowledge of income tax preparation. Strong troubleshooting, written communication, and attention to detail are essential for documenting defects and performing thorough software testing.
Full description
Support & Quality Assurance Engineer
About the Role
TaxHawk's business runs on a seasonal cycle, and this role follows it. From January through the end of April, you work in Customer Support, helping taxpayers get through filing season and building firsthand knowledge of where our software confuses, frustrates, or fails our customers. From May through December, you carry that knowledge into Quality Assurance, testing the product that customers will use next season.
This position is intended for Support personnel who want to move into a full-time, year-round role. The support experience is not a detour from the QA work — it is the foundation of it. QA engineers who have personally answered customer questions during peak season test differently and better, because they know and understand our valued customers.
How the Year Is Structured
January – April: Customer Support Peak filing season. You are on the front line with customers, responding to contacts across supported channels and resolving tax software and account issues accurately and within service expectations.
May – December: Quality Assurance Off-season and pre-season development. You own testing for assigned features and projects, validate changes, and help get the next tax year's product ready for release.
QA Responsibilities (May – December)
- Own and maintain quality for assigned features and projects — watch for changes, test them thoroughly, and become the subject matter expert on your areas.
- Write and maintain test cases and test plans, and contribute to test strategy and acceptance criteria for new features.
- Perform exploratory, usability, accessibility, and edge-case testing beyond documented test cases.
- Reproduce, isolate, and diagnose issues using manual testing, logs, browser dev tools, data queries, and AI tools; analyze root cause when appropriate.
- Write high-quality defect reports with isolated evidence and minimal steps to duplicate; verify fixes, locate any regressions, and communicate with developers to resolve them.
- Partner with Development, Product, Design, PDS, IT, and Support — collaborate on acceptance criteria and Definition of Done, advocate for prevention, and test and approve deployment requests.
- Represent the customer in quality decisions by translating the prior filing season's contact themes into testing priorities; track quality metrics, follow reporting and communication procedures, and contribute to QA process improvement.
Qualifications
Required
- Minimum of three filing seasons in TaxHawk Customer Support.
- Working knowledge of individual income tax preparation concepts and the filing process.
- Excellent troubleshooting skills — able to narrow a vague problem down to a specific, reproducible cause.
- Strong written communication — able to document a defect so someone who has never seen it can reproduce it.
- Demonstrated attention to detail and follow-through with issues that are easy to overlook.
- Curiosity about how systems work, and willingness to dig into logs, data, and unfamiliartools to find an answer.
- Comfort working independently on assigned areas and asking for direction when priorities conflict.
Preferred
- Prior QA or software testing experience, formal or informal.
- Experience using AI tools to assist with testing, troubleshooting, or documentation.
- Familiarity with browser developer tools.
- Experience with defect tracking and test case management.
- Experience testing across multiple environments.
