Manual QA Engineer (Contract to Hire)

We live in a world where technology is rapidly changing the educational experiences of students and teachers everywhere, and we have the opportunity to shape how this change takes place. Kira's mission is to harness transformative AI technologies to make world-class personalized teaching and learning accessible to everyone. Kira is a rapidly growing startup backed by top-tier Venture Capital funds including New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Andrew Ng’s AI Fund, and Primavera.Quality is critical to ensuring teachers and students can rely on our product every day. ​​As a Manual QA Engineer, you will help ensure a high-quality, reliable experience across our platform. This role is focused on hands-on manual testing, exploratory testing, and validating new features before they reach production. You will work closely with product managers, engineers, and designers to deeply understand new features, identify potential issues early, and advocate for the end-user experience. You will play a key role in verifying functionality across complex workflows, including AI-powered features where outputs may be non-deterministic.This role is ideal for someone who is detail-oriented, curious about how products work, and passionate about delivering high-quality user experiences.What You’ll DoPerform manual testing of new product features across web applications and AI-driven workflowsExecute regression, exploratory, and acceptance testing to validate new functionality before releaseRun sanity checks on staging and release builds to ensure stability prior to deploymentWrite clear, detailed, and reproducible bug reports, including steps to reproduce, logs, and impact assessmentsCollaborate closely with engineers to debug issues and verify fixesDevelop a deep understanding of the product to identify edge cases, usability issues, and quality risksValidate complex teacher and student workflows, including AI-generated outputs and interactive experiencesEvaluate features not only for correctness but also usability, clarity, and user experienceHelp prioritize testing efforts based on product impact and riskContribute to QA documentation, testing checklists, and release validation processesParticipate in release readiness and post-release validation to ensure product stabilityWhat We’re Looking For2+ years of experience in manual software testing or quality assuranceExperience and expertise in QA processes and UI/UX testing (web and mobile)Strong experience performing manual regression, exploratory, and functional testingExperience testing web applications and user-facing productsAbility to write clear and actionable bug reportsStrong debugging skills and ability to work closely with engineers to reproduce issuesHigh attention to detail and strong product intuitionExcellent communication skills and ability to collaborate across engineering, product, and designComfort working in a fast-moving startup environmentStrong curiosity and willingness to deeply understand product behavior and edge casesNice to HaveExperience testing AI or LLM-powered productsExperience testing complex workflows involving APIs, backend systems, or data pipelinesFamiliarity with basic developer tools (browser dev tools, logs, network inspection)Experience testing distributed systems or modern web stacksOur services currently span:Next.js + React frontendKotlin + Java Spring Boot backendPython FastAPI AI servicesLangsmith agent workflowsWhat Success Looks LikeCritical user flows consistently work for teachers and studentsBugs are caught early during development rather than after releaseEngineers have clear, actionable bug reports that speed up debuggingProduct releases ship with high confidence and minimal regressionsAI-driven features behave reliably and degrade gracefully when issues occurWhat We OfferHourly rate $40-$60/hrTeam lunches Dog friendly office 🐶 Should you convert to FT, offer includes base compensation and equity. For applicants in the US, the salary range for this role is $90,000 - $120,000 depending on relevant experience and skill setMedical, dental, vision and life insurance, including a medical insurance plan with 100% coverage of employee premiumsDoorDash credit for lunch dailyEqual Employment Opportunity EmployerAt Kira, we are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth, lactation and related medical conditions), national origin, age, physical and mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information (including characteristics and testing), military and veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Kira believes that diversity and inclusion among our employees are critical to our success as a company, and we seek to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool. Selection for employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need.Background CheckKira will make a conditional job offer in line with local, state and federal laws, and a subsequent criminal, education, and employment history background check will then be issued.