Staff SDET

Role Overview

Staff SDET (individual contributor and quality engineering leader) within a software development scrum team. You’ll guide a small group of SDETs and Test Engineers and own test automation across the full stack.

Responsibilities

• Build and maintain automated test suites for the full technology stack: UI, API, microservices, and database.
• Lead quality engineering by guiding SDETs in at least one functional area to enhance, optimize, and stabilize automated test suites.
• Evaluate test automation tools: perform tool analysis, create proof-of-concept models, and recommend tools for selection.
• Establish quality standards and workflows: coding guidelines, peer reviews, Git workflow, process workflow, quality gates, and CI/CD practices.
• Participate in technical reviews (walkthroughs) with architects and developers; communicate requirements, design, limitations, and feature scope.
• Run functional and regression testing, analyze results, and report defects through to closure.
• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD to enable continuous testing and deployment.
• Participate in Agile ceremonies (sprint grooming, planning, demos, retros) for mentee teams; attend Go/No-Go and release meetings.
• Create test strategy and standards: test strategies, guidelines, SOPs, and utilities/tooling to improve automation efficiency.
• Production issue triage and RCA: analyze production metrics, perform root cause analysis, and recommend system hardening.
• Mentor/SME responsibilities: provide guidance across multiple application areas, ensure adherence to SOPs and design/coding guidelines, and oversee a small group of SDETs.
• Maintain test environments and test data, ensuring consistency with staging/production configurations.

Requirements

• 8+ years of related experience, or 6 years + an advanced degree.
• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, CS, physics, math, statistics, or related field (or equivalent experience).

Nice to Have / Additional Signals

• Experience leading quality engineering practices and test automation strategy across UI, APIs, microservices, and database layers.
• Strong mentorship/leadership of SDETs and test engineers and ownership of CI/CD test integration.