This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Lead SDET based in India.
This is a senior technical leadership role focused on building scalable quality engineering systems that ensure reliability, performance, and resilience across complex distributed products. You will act as a key driver of automation strategy, embedding quality into every stage of the software development lifecycle rather than treating it as a separate function. The role combines hands-on engineering with architectural influence, enabling you to design and evolve robust test frameworks that support rapid product growth. You will collaborate closely with engineering, product, and architecture teams to define quality standards, improve CI/CD systems, and enhance overall engineering efficiency. In this role, you will also mentor and guide SDET engineers, helping to elevate technical practices and foster a strong quality-first culture. This is an opportunity to shape how engineering teams build, test, and ship software at scale in a fast-moving, high-growth environment.
Accountabilities:
- Lead the design, development, and evolution of scalable test automation frameworks across UI, API, service, and integration layers.
- Define and drive quality engineering strategy, including KPIs, testing standards, and release quality guardrails across engineering teams.
- Architect and implement robust automation solutions that improve test coverage, reliability, and execution efficiency.
- Own and improve CI/CD pipelines to enable faster, safer, and more reliable software releases.
- Conduct root cause analysis for complex production issues and drive long-term preventive quality improvements.
- Establish best practices in test data management, contract testing, mocking, stubbing, and QA observability.
- Collaborate with engineering leadership to influence system design and architecture decisions with a focus on testability and resilience.
- Mentor and coach SDET engineers, providing technical guidance, code reviews, and career development support.
- Identify gaps in test coverage and automation maturity, leading initiatives to reduce flakiness and improve overall product quality.
- Drive continuous improvement initiatives across engineering processes, tools, and quality practices.
Requirements
- 6+ years of experience in software testing, quality engineering, or SDET roles in product or platform engineering environments.
- Strong programming skills in JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, or Java with experience building automation frameworks from scratch.
- Deep expertise with test automation tools such as Playwright, Cypress, Selenium, Jest, Mocha, or PyTest.
- Proven experience designing and scaling automation frameworks for complex, distributed, microservices-based systems.
- Hands-on experience with APIs, microservices architecture, and GraphQL-based systems.
- Strong understanding of CI/CD pipelines, DevOps practices, and cloud environments (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
- Experience in technical leadership roles, including mentoring engineers and driving quality initiatives across teams.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to debug complex system issues.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills to work effectively with cross-functional teams and stakeholders.
Benefits
- Competitive compensation aligned with senior engineering roles.
- Opportunity to lead quality engineering strategy in a high-growth product environment.
- Remote-friendly and flexible work structure.
- Exposure to large-scale distributed systems and modern cloud-native architectures.
- Strong focus on technical ownership, autonomy, and engineering excellence.
- Opportunity to mentor and grow high-performing engineering teams.
- Collaborative, product-driven culture focused on continuous improvement.
- Career growth opportunities in technical leadership and platform engineering.