Senior SDET Lead

Datavault AI Inc. • Philadelphia, PA

3d • Remote

About The Position

We are seeking a highly technical QA Lead / Senior SDET Lead to architect and drive our automation‑first quality engineering strategy. This role is deeply hands‑on: you will design automation frameworks, build test infrastructure, integrate quality signals into CI/CD pipelines, and ensure our systems are testable, observable, and reliable by design. You will lead a team of QA engineers while also contributing directly to code, tooling, and automation architecture.

Requirements

• 7+ years in QA/SDET roles, with 2–3 years in a technical leadership capacity.
• Strong hands‑on experience building automation frameworks (UI, API, backend).
• Proficiency in one or more programming languages (Java, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript).
• Deep experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines.
• Expertise with modern test frameworks (Playwright, Cypress, Selenium, TestNG, JUnit, pytest, etc.).
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, microservices, and API‑driven architectures.
• Solid understanding of Agile, DevOps, and continuous delivery practices.
• Experience with Git and modern branching strategies.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with containerized test environments (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Familiarity with contract testing, service virtualization, and mock servers.
• Experience with performance and load testing tools (k6, Gatling, JMeter).
• Exposure to observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry).
• Experience in high‑scale or real‑time systems (ad tech, fintech, event tech, etc.).

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor SDETs and QA engineers with a focus on automation, tooling, and engineering excellence.
• Define a modern quality engineering strategy centered on automation, continuous testing, and shift‑left practices.
• Establish coding standards for test automation, testability patterns, and engineering best practices.
• Partner with Engineering and DevOps to embed quality into architecture, design reviews, and deployment workflows.
• Architect, build, and maintain automation frameworks for: UI testing (Playwright, Cypress, Selenium) API testing (REST, GraphQL, gRPC) Backend/service‑level testing Contract testing (Pact or similar)
• Develop reusable libraries, utilities, and internal test frameworks.
• Implement parallel execution, distributed test runners, and containerized test environments.
• Ensure frameworks support scalability, modularity, and low‑maintenance test design.
• Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins).
• Build continuous testing workflows across build, integration, staging, and production‑like environments.
• Implement automated quality gates, flaky‑test detection, and intelligent failure triage.
• Collaborate with DevOps to optimize pipelines for speed, determinism, and reproducibility.
• Oversee and contribute to test planning, test case design, and automated test development.
• Ensure robust coverage across functional, regression, integration, and end‑to‑end scenarios.
• Implement service virtualization, mock servers, and dependency isolation for distributed systems.
• Drive performance, load, and reliability testing using modern tooling (k6, Gatling, JMeter).
• Integrate test signals with observability platforms (logs, metrics, traces).
• Define and track engineering‑level quality KPIs (coverage, flakiness rate, MTTR, automation ROI).
• Build dashboards for test health, pipeline quality, and release readiness.
• Lead root‑cause analysis and drive systemic improvements across engineering.
• Promote early testing practices including unit, component, and contract testing.
• Work with developers to improve code testability, dependency injection patterns, and instrumentation.
• Support TDD/BDD workflows and participate in code reviews with a focus on test coverage and quality.
• Advocate for built‑in test capabilities such as health checks, diagnostics, and runtime assertions.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and benefits package.
• A high‑impact engineering environment where automation and quality engineering are first‑class citizens.
• Opportunities to work closely with senior technical leadership.
• The chance to shape the automation and quality architecture of a next‑generation platform.
• A culture built on innovation, ownership, and continuous improvement.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 11-50 employees