Senior Software Development Engineer in Test (SDTE)

Side

About The Position

Side is seeking a Senior SDET to join its São Paulo team and design, build, and own regression test automation across iOS, Android, and Web platforms for the game industry. This is a builder and leadership role offering the autonomy to architect test automation infrastructure within a mature engineering organization. The successful candidate will set technical direction for test automation, partner with mobile and web engineering leads, and raise quality practices across the organization. The role involves creating a unified automation framework, developing a strategy for generating and maintaining regression cases, and implementing UI, API, and integration test suites. The Senior SDET will integrate suites into CI/CD pipelines, establish test data and environment strategies, reduce test flakiness, and report quality metrics to engineering leadership. The position also partners with product and engineering leads to translate specifications into tests, mentors engineers on testability, and evolves tooling and framework architecture as platforms change.

Requirements

At least 6 years of experience as an SDET, QA Automation Engineer, or Software Engineer with a strong testing focus, including end-to-end ownership of automation architecture.
Proven experience building test automation frameworks from scratch for mobile (iOS and/or Android) and web applications, ideally across more than one company or major initiative.
Deep hands-on experience with mobile automation tools such as Maestro, XCUITest, Espresso, or equivalent; deep XCUITest expertise is a strong plus for senior candidates.
Deep hands-on experience with web automation tools such as Playwright, Cypress, Selenium/WebDriver, or equivalent.
Strong programming skills in at least one of TypeScript/JavaScript, Java, Kotlin, Swift, or Python.
Experience designing and integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines, including diagnosing pipeline-level flakiness and build or test failures.
Strong grasp of test design techniques, including equivalence partitioning, boundary analysis, and risk-based test prioritization, and the judgment to apply them at scale.
Experience with API testing, including REST and contract testing, as part of end-to-end coverage.
Comfort with Git and collaborative development workflows, including pull request review and branching strategies.
Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers and influence testing practices beyond individual contributions.
A bias toward action and comfort making pragmatic architectural tradeoffs and iterating without waiting for a perfect specification.
Excellent communication skills, including the ability to clearly report quality risks and automation gaps to engineers and leadership stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

Experience with cross-platform test strategy, including shared test logic or page-object patterns across iOS, Android, and Web.
Exposure to performance and accessibility testing.
Experience with Appium for cross-platform mobile UI automation.
Background scaling test automation at a growth-stage or fast-moving product organization.
Experience with cloud device farms such as BrowserStack, Sauce Labs, or Firebase Test Lab.
Prior experience as a technical lead or automation architect on a QE team.
Experience with Unity and/or Unreal.

Responsibilities

Architect and build a unified test automation framework from the ground up for iOS, Android, and Web clients, minimizing duplicated test logic where possible.
Analyze manual test suites, user flows, and product requirements to identify high-value regression scenarios and define how the suite stays current as the product evolves.
Implement and maintain UI, API, and integration test suites using appropriate mobile and web automation tools.
Design and integrate automated test suites into CI/CD pipelines to provide fast, reliable feedback on every build.
Establish test data management, environment provisioning, and reporting strategies to keep automation stable and maintainable at scale.
Triage and reduce test flakiness, define reliability standards, and maintain those standards for the automation suite.
Define and report quality metrics, including coverage, pass rate, flake rate, and execution time, and use them to drive prioritization.
Partner with product and engineering leads to translate feature specifications and acceptance criteria into automated test suites and influence testability during design.
Mentor engineers and set technical direction for testability best practices, including testable code, dependency injection, and accessible UI locators.
Evaluate and evolve tools and framework architecture to accommodate mobile operating system and web framework changes, making build-versus-buy decisions as needed.