Services › Business analysis › QA, UAT, test plans & automation
Business analysis engagement typeQA, UAT, test plans & automation
Hire EliosTech, Inc. to take the testing job off your plate: test plans, QA, UAT with your people and automated API and regression testing, delivered as scoped sprint stories.
You are the CEO of your world; this engagement type tells EliosTech where you want us. Vice-president–level ownership takes vice-president–level money, while a narrow individual or external-consultant focus can carry significant discounts. Contracts set the boundaries, EliosTech work is proprietary, and service continues while paid. How it works →
What this work is
Testing is where requirements prove themselves. EliosTech, Inc. writes the plan, builds the tests, runs QA before every demo, organizes UAT with your business users and automates the regression so later sprints ship faster without breaking what already works. Each piece can be hired on its own as sprint stories, priced in your written Sprint plan.
What EliosTech does in this engagement type
- Test plan creation: strategy, scope, environments, test data and entry / exit criteria, traced back to stories and acceptance criteria.
- QA testing: functional and regression testing of every story before it is demoed to you.
- API testing: SmartBear ReadyAPI and Postman suites for each endpoint, including negative and edge cases.
- UAT testing: scripts written with your business users, sessions scheduled and run, sign-off tracked from the first test to cutover.
- Automation testing: automated API and regression suites that run in the pipeline your team already uses.
- Defect management: clear, reproducible defects logged, prioritized and retested, with a report every sprint.
What you get
- Test plan and test strategy
- Test case library with traceability matrix
- Automated API / regression suite (ReadyAPI and/or Postman)
- UAT scripts and sign-off log
- Defect report every sprint
- Release readiness summary
Good fit when…
- Developers are testing their own work and things slip through
- UAT keeps getting squeezed before go-live
- Every release means days of manual re-testing
- An API has partners depending on it and no automated tests
Tools we bring to your development team
Over many engagements, EliosTech, Inc. has worked side by side with development teams on the tools they already run. We work inside your licenses, repositories and boards; we do not resell software or lock you into ours. The point is simple: a business analyst who speaks the team's tools turns requirements into working, tested software faster, with fewer surprises at demo time.
SmartBear / ReadyAPI
Functional and data-driven API tests in ReadyAPI (the SmartBear suite that grew out of SoapUI): REST and SOAP, assertions tied to acceptance criteria, test data sets for the edge cases business users care about, and suites the team can rerun every sprint instead of re-testing by hand.
In this engagement type: the main home for data-driven functional and regression API tests.
Postman
Shared Postman collections and environments for every endpoint in scope, so analysts, developers, testers and partners call the same requests with the same examples. Collections double as living documentation and can run in the team's pipeline (for example with Newman) as a quick API smoke test.
In this engagement type: quick smoke collections, run in CI with Newman, plus shared examples for UAT users.
Microsoft .NET teams
We have spent years helping teams that build on Microsoft .NET: Web APIs, background services, integrations and the configuration around them. We read a solution well enough to know where a change lands (controller, service, data layer, config), write stories that match how the code is organized, and check each pull-request demo against its acceptance criteria. Your developers write the production code; we keep the requirements and the code honest to each other.
In this engagement type: we coordinate with .NET developers on unit-test expectations and test hooks, and test the APIs they ship.
Redocly & OpenAPI
API contracts written and reviewed as OpenAPI, linted and published with Redocly so the reference docs stay in step with the spec in version control. Business rules, error codes and examples live next to the endpoint they describe, and partner teams read the same contract your developers build to.
In this engagement type: tests are written against the published contract, so docs and behavior cannot drift apart.
Jira, Confluence & Azure DevOps
The board is where the plan lives. We set it up to match the Epic kickoff (epics, features, stories, tasks), write acceptance criteria, refine and size the backlog, link stories to tests and defects, and keep the dashboards that show progress and budget every sprint. Same discipline in Azure DevOps Boards or similar tools.
In this engagement type: test cases linked to stories (with a test-management add-on where you have one), and defects linked to both.
What our BAs do in Jira (and similar)
- Structure the board to match the Epic kickoff: epics → features → stories → tasks, so what you approved is exactly what the team works.
- Write stories developers can build and testers can prove: clear user stories with Given / When / Then acceptance criteria, data rules and examples.
- Refine and size the backlog with the team before each sprint, with agreed definitions of ready and done.
- Trace everything: link stories to API contracts, test cases, defects and the Confluence (or wiki) pages that explain the decisions.
- Report in the open: sprint dashboards, burn-down and a budget view, plus the written progress and change report you get with every demo.
- Triage and route defects so the right person fixes the right thing, and nothing new enters a running sprint without your written approval.
- Link every test case to its story and every defect to both, so the demo shows exactly what passed.
Jira and Confluence, Azure DevOps Boards or the tracker you already use. We work in your instance and your workflow.
How it runs: Epic kickoff → Sprint 0 → Sprint 1
- 20-minute intro call → Epic kickoff: we walk the whole project (features, stories, tasks) and you decide whether the work and price are right for you.
- Sprint 0 needs the down payment first. About 2 weeks and up to about 30 days of investigation. It produces your Sprint 1 plan.
- You may decline Sprint 1. If you accept it, that scope is honored and demoed as completion. Then the next payment is due.
- After that, two-week sprints: steady two-week payments, a demo every sprint and a written progress and change report.
Rates and how this engagement type starts
| Engagement shape | Typical rate |
|---|---|
| Long-term remote engagement (roughly 1–2 years) | from ~$80/hr (typically $80–$140) |
| Onsite or heavier hybrid, Cook / Lake counties | ~$130/hr |
| Operating domain + crew (EliosTech runs analysts, developers, testers) | $140–$200/hr or an annual program |
| Short C2C surge, rescue or go-live push | ~$200/hr |
| Discovery = Sprint 0 (default start) | $8,000 down payment before Sprint 0 starts, confirmed in written terms |
| Sprint 1 and later sprints | Billed per two-week sprint from your accepted Sprint plan |
Senior bands, stated up front: domain ownership, not commodity staff augmentation. C2C through EliosTech, Inc. preferred. Longer terms and prepaid work move the rate down; short notice and onsite days move it up.
Configure this engagement type
- Configure the job below
- Estimate — a rough range, instantly
- Terms — read and accept
- Down payment — we invoice; kickoff goes on the calendar
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Read about this work →Rather talk it through?
A 20-minute scope call is free and tells you whether we are the right fit. Discovery (Sprint 0) is paid work that ends in a Sprint 1 plan you may accept or decline.