QA Tester — Operations Merchant Application Review (MAR) Module

About NextLayer NextLayer Technology is a Bitcoin Lightning Network payment platform. Clients pay merchants directly from a mobile app over Lightning; we handle node infrastructure, payment routing, and fiat settlement. Operations is the new internal control panel (replacing the legacy Mainframe admin portal) that staff use to manage merchants, settings, and compliance. The Task We need a QA tester to functionally test the Merchant Application Review (MAR) module being built in Operations — a full-stack feature spanning operations-backend (Laravel 11, PHP 8.2) and operations-frontend (Nuxt 3 + Vue 3). A developer is delivering the module against a set of GitHub issues (backend fields/logic + frontend forms/wiring), and each must pass functional QA before it is accepted and merged. All testing is against our staging environment (*.staging.nextlayer.live) — test credentials, a staging Operations account, and sample merchant records are provided at onboarding. The complete scope and acceptance checklist live in the designated GitHub issues the GitHub issues are the authoritative spec for what "pass" means on each item. Deliverables Functional test pass covering every deliverable in the assigned issues: NAICS/SIC industry code capture and display (backend field + frontend UI) merchant_type, website_url, daily_tx_limit fields — persistence, backfill correctness on existing merchants, and frontend edit-page wiring Prohibited-industry (NAICS/SIC) blocklist — auto-rejection gate in the MAR review flow Daily transaction limit monitor — auto-deactivate when a merchant exceeds the limit, auto-reactivate logic Settings endpoints — Online Merchant Registration Fee, 16% POS loan interest cap note (backend values reflected correctly in frontend) Website compliance check — the 3 mandatory CSR compliance checkboxes, wired to the neko-browser integration Merchant list page — confirm it reflects real backend data (not dummy/static) after the frontend is wired up Review-status / notes / audit model — review_status transitions (kept independent of is_active), the single author-tagged CSR+CSM notes thread, CSR→CSM two-tier approval/override behavior, and that audit-log entries are recorded for review actions (see operations/mar-review-status-notes-and-audit.md for the expected behavior to verify against) Each defect filed as a separate GitHub Issue in our required format (steps to reproduce, expected/actual, severity, environment/build, screenshot or recording) A test report per assigned issue, posted as a comment on that issue: pass/fail per acceptance item, notes on anything ambiguous against spec Available for one re-test round per issue after the developer implements fixes Tech Stack / Environment Web application QA (Operations): operations-backend (Laravel 11 API) operations-frontend (Nuxt 3 + Vue 3), tested via browser against staging — no code changes expected, black-box/functional testing Staging Operations login + sample merchant data supplied at onboarding GitHub Issues for all reporting; Matrix chat for communication Required Experience Experience doing functional / black-box QA on web applications (forms, CRUD flows, admin/back-office tools) and filing structured bug reports (GitHub Issues or similar) Comfortable reading a Laravel/Vue-style spec (API + form fields) well enough to verify field-level behavior (validation, persistence, backfill) without needing to read the implementation code Clear, concise written reporting — pass/fail per acceptance item, not formal test documents Bonus: familiarity with merchant/KYB onboarding or compliance review workflows Working Rules You will be required to follow the NextLayer Development Workflow (attached) as it applies to QA: join our Matrix chat server, test only against the designated staging environment using credentials and data supplied by NextLayer, report all defects as GitHub Issues in the prescribed format, record per-issue test results and sign-off on the designated tracking issue(s), communicate blockers immediately, and treat all credentials, merchant data, and project information as confidential. Upwork Contract Clause QA Process. Contractor agrees to follow the NextLayer Development Workflow as applicable to quality assurance: (a) join and communicate via the company Matrix chat server; (b) perform all testing against the designated staging environment using credentials and data supplied by NextLayer; (c) record every defect as a GitHub Issue in the prescribed reporting format, including steps to reproduce, expected and actual results, severity, and supporting screenshots or recordings; (d) record per-issue test results and sign-off as a comment on the designated GitHub issue(s); (e) perform re-testing of fixed defects within the engagement scope. Each contract milestone corresponds to one or more designated GitHub issues, agreed in advance; a milestone is payable when QA sign-off is recorded on all of its designated issue(s) and accepted by the Codebase Coordinator. All credentials, merchant data, repositories, and project information are confidential and the property of NextLayer Technology. The short of it: The first deliverable would be your familiarizing yourself with our web app / flow and doing initial tests then reporting issues. Then dev would make change and on re-test round you will finalize fixes and approve devs work.