Software Quality Assurance Specialist (BC-Hybrid)

Our Company

Square One is the first and fastest-growing Canadian insurtech, helping to modernize home and car insurance. Since 2011 we have offered home, tenant and car insurance policies that customers can truly personalize to their needs, so they only pay for the coverage they want. Today we insure homes in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, and cars in Ontario and Quebec, selling and servicing our policies online, through our mobile apps and by phone.

Software is at the heart of how we do this. We built our own web-based platform in-house, and it runs nearly every part of the business: quoting and online sales, rating, policy changes and renewals, billing and payments, customer self-service and claims reporting. We are now building AI and large language models into that platform to make it even easier for customers and our team to get things done. Don’t take our word for it though, visit www.squareone.ca/reviews to see what our customers say.

Your Role

As we keep growing across Canada, we’re adding another Quality Assurance Specialist to our team to make sure every release lives up to our standards. A pricing rule, a policy wording or a payment change that goes out wrong affects real customers’ coverage and money, so we sweat the small stuff so that they don’t have to. We’re looking for someone with exceptional attention to detail who wants to keep our customers’ online experience seamless and hassle-free.

Square One is big enough that you’ll have the resources you need and the satisfaction of knowing the code you’ve tested is used by thousands of customers every day. We’re also small enough that there’s no bureaucracy and you’ll never get lost in the crowd: you’ll work directly with developers, business systems analysts, underwriting, claims and customer service, and have direct access to our leadership team. We move quickly, but we’re focused on the long term, so we’d rather take the time to do things right than rush out a new feature.

You’ll also be joining a supportive team. You’ll never be set up to fail; you’ll get the coaching, mentoring, training and tools you need to keep growing.

Your Responsibilities

Testing and release quality

• Plan, write and run test cases for new features and bug fixes in our in-house policy management platform and our iOS and Android mobile apps.
• Test the parts of insurance software that are easy to get wrong: premium rating and discounts, coverage options, endorsements, renewals, mid-term changes and cancellations, billing schedules, and integrations with payment platforms.
• Use AI tools to help write test cases, generate test data and spot outliers, and help test the AI and LLM features we build into the platform.

Requirements and design

• Work with our business systems analysts and internal users (such as underwriting, claims and customer service) to capture change requests and make sure requirements are clear, testable and fully scoped before development starts.
• Identify business and technical impacts, edge cases and gaps in requested requirements.
• Take part in design and prototyping sessions for new features that improve our business processes, operations and information flow.
• Use SQL to investigate data and spot problems early and proactively flag issues before customers notice them.
• Reproduce reported issues in our development environment and document clear steps for developers to fix them.

Your Qualifications

While we value education, what matters most to us is demonstrated experience testing enterprise-grade web applications and mobile apps.

Must-haves:

• Demonstrated experience testing web-based software in a professional environment.
• Working knowledge of quality assurance tools, methods and concepts.
• Strong data collection and analysis skills, with working knowledge of SQL and relational databases.
• Experience using AI tools to help write test cases and identify outliers.
• Experience with testing security changes
• Experience refining requirements with business stakeholders.
• Experience working with and troubleshooting production environments.
• Strong attention to detail.
• Clear verbal and written communication skills.

Nice-to-haves:

• Experience using GitHub Issues to track software features and bugs.
• Prior experience in the insurance or financial services sector, particularly property and casualty insurance.
• Familiarity with the complexity of billing, rating algorithms and payment platform integrations.
• Experience testing native iOS and Android apps.
• Experience testing features built on AI or large language models.
• Working knowledge of French.

To be successful as a Quality Assurance Specialist at Square One, the following should also describe you:

• Articulate: you can explain complex technical ideas to a wide audience, from our leadership team to licensed insurance advisors, product managers and software developers.
• Detail-oriented: at Square One we really sweat the small stuff. Do you think about all the obscure edge cases that could occur in a feature? Do you enjoy getting to the bottom of every issue you come across?
• Proactive: “not my area” isn’t something you’ll hear at Square One. If you see something that needs improving, you’re expected to champion it.
• Comfortable with a fast-pace environment: we’re methodical in our approach, but relentless about getting code live and into the hands of our customers.

Your Compensation + Benefits

Just as Square One personalizes policies for its customers, we personalize compensation and benefits for our team. Your very competitive compensation and benefits package includes:

• A competitive base salary.
• Work-from-home flexibility.
• 3 weeks of vacation to start and an additional week after 3 years.
• Flexible medical, dental, vision and extended health care coverage.
• An employee assistance program
• Short-term and long-term disability coverage.
• A profit-sharing plan.
• In-house and external training paid by Square One.