Senior Technical Engineering Manager, SDET

Position Overview

Senior Technical Engineering Manager, SDET

20–30% hands-on coding and reviews

shift-left testing

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of SDETs focused on full-stack automation across Web, Mobile, and API layers.
• Contribute directly to the design, architecture, and development of test automation frameworks, tools, and libraries (~20–30% hands-on coding).
• Architect and evolve scalable automation frameworks and testing infrastructure to improve reliability, maintainability, and velocity.
• Define and execute enterprise-level quality strategies across functional, regression, integration, exploratory, performance, and reliability testing.
• Partner with Development, Product, DevOps, and Security teams to design and implement holistic testing strategies ensuring high-quality releases.
• Integrate automated testing into CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions) to ensure early defect detection.
• Lead and analyze performance, load, and scalability testing (JMeter, Gatling), incorporating observability data into quality metrics.
• Define and track key metrics (e.g., defect escape rate, automation coverage, stability) to drive continuous improvement.
• Champion modern testing practices: shift-left, mocking, service virtualization, contract testing, and risk-based validation.
• Ensure robust test environments, data management, and automation infrastructure supporting rapid delivery cycles.
• Lead hiring, onboarding, and professional development for SDETs, fostering a culture of ownership, inclusion, and continuous improvement.
• Represent Quality Engineering in enterprise programs, influencing architecture and design for reliability, performance, and customer trust.

Qualifications

Required:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• 10+ years in software or quality engineering, including

  5+ years in technical leadership

  roles leading SDET/QA teams.
• Strong proficiency in

  Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, or Python

  .
• Deep expertise in automation tools:

  Playwright, Selenium, Appium, JUnit/TestNG, RestAssured, Postman

  .
• Proven success in designing and scaling automation frameworks in

  microservices/cloud-based architectures

  .
• Experience integrating automation within

  CI/CD

  (Jenkins, GitHub Actions).
• Understanding of

  performance testing

  (JMeter, Gatling) and interpreting system-level metrics.
• Strong foundation in testing pyramid, mocking, service virtualization, and test data management.
• Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Data-driven mindset with proven ability to improve product quality and release velocity.

Preferred:

• Experience in

  cloud-native environments

  (AWS preferred — Lambda, EKS, CloudFront, etc.).
• Familiarity with

  observability and monitoring tools

  (Datadog, Grafana, CloudWatch).
• Experience in

  regulated domains

  (e.g., FinTech) with exposure to compliance testing and secure test data management.
• Understanding of

  reliability and resilience practices

  , including chaos engineering, contract testing, and canary deployments.