The range is intentionally wide; final compensation depends on the candidate's experience, qualifications, technical skills, and applicable government-contracting rates.
About the role
The IETM QA / Configuration Analyst is the last line of defense before an Extense technical-publication deliverable goes to the customer. You will validate XML source content and IETM output for completeness, link integrity, applicability correctness, BREX conformance, schema validity, and faithful representation of the approved engineering baseline. You will also own the configuration / baseline comparison work that lets the program prove what changed between one release and the next.
Key responsibilities
- Run schema validation, BREX validation, Schematron checks, and link / cross-reference checks across S1000D / XML source repositories.
- Test IETM output for navigation, search behavior, applicability filtering, link traversal, figure display, and procedure rendering on the target IETM viewer.
- Maintain the program baseline-comparison matrix: which data modules changed, were added, or were removed between releases, and why.
- Track defects from identification through correction and verification using the program defect-tracking tool (Jira, Azure DevOps, or equivalent).
- Verify that customer review comments have been correctly dispositioned and that the resulting changes are present in the next baseline.
- Coordinate release readiness: validation report, defect closure, baseline manifest, change summary, and CDRL submission package.
- Maintain version / revision history of data modules and align it with engineering configuration data (ECP / ECN / TD references).
- Surface systemic authoring or transformation issues to the S1000D Architect and XML / XSLT Developer for upstream correction.
- Support audit and customer-acceptance activities, including First Article / In-Process Reviews and Final Verification Reviews.
Required qualifications
- U.S. citizenship is required; selected candidate must be willing to undergo a federal background investigation.
- 5+ years of experience in technical-publication QA, configuration management, or technical-data analysis.
- Hands-on experience validating structured content (S1000D, DITA, or equivalent XML).
- Comfort with XML, XPath, and at least basic XSLT — enough to read transformations and write simple validation queries.
- Experience using defect-tracking and version-control tools (Jira, Azure DevOps, Git, Subversion, or equivalent).
- Strong attention to detail; demonstrated ability to detect inconsistencies others miss.
- Clear written communication; able to produce validation reports and defect descriptions that authors and developers can act on.
Preferred qualifications
- Direct experience supporting IETM / IETP programs for U.S. military aviation or aerospace customers.
- Experience with CSDB platforms and S1000D status workflow.
- Familiarity with MIL-STD-40051-1, MIL-STD-3001, and configuration-management standards (EIA-649, MIL-HDBK-61).
- Section 508 / WCAG 2.1 awareness for digital deliverables.
- Active U.S. Government security clearance.
Education
Bachelor's degree in Technical Communication, Information Science, Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field. Equivalent professional experience (7+ years) in technical-publication QA or configuration management will be considered in lieu of a degree.
Apply for this role
Email careers@extense.co with the subject line EXT-QAC-2026-05 — IETM QA / Configuration Analyst. Include your résumé, a short cover note describing your most relevant project, and (where applicable) two or three representative work samples or anonymized excerpts.