Software Development Engineer in Test Contractor (SDET Contractor)

PlayStation Global•Los Angeles, CA

16h•Hybrid

About The Position

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) is seeking a highly skilled Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) to design, develop, and maintain automated test frameworks for backend services and APIs. This role requires a strong Java engineer with deep testing expertise to collaborate with developers, product owners, and scrum teams to ensure the high-quality delivery of complex services and integrations. The position involves building robust automation, validating API contracts and flows, working with microservice-based systems, and contributing to continuous integration and quality strategies.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field—or equivalent practical experience.
3+ years of experience in software QE, test automation, or development roles.
Demonstrated ability to work independently as well as part of a collaborative Scrum team.
Interest in working as part of an agile, collaborative and cross-functional team that works on modern software design and development.
Exposure to version control systems (preferably Git).
Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
Strong experience with Java programming (advanced OOP concepts, collections, generics, lambdas).
Hands-on experience writing tests with JUnit (JUnit5 preferred).
Expertise in API testing for REST-based services (familiarity with gRPC is a plus).
Solid understanding of API schema validation, including OpenAPI/Swagger specifications.
Experience building and maintaining automation frameworks for backend or microservice architectures.
Familiarity with Git, branching strategies, and CI/CD tools (e.g. Jenkins, GitHub Actions).
Strong problem-solving and debugging skills. Including analyzing logs and diagnosing service failures.

Nice To Haves

Experience designing test plans, writing detailed test scenarios, and performing domain-driven test analysis.
Familiarity with Spring Boot–based micro services and common backend service patterns.
Experience using IntelliJ IDEA or similar Java-focused development environments.
Hands-on experience with log analysis and observability tools (Splunk preferred).
Understanding of gRPC service testing and related tooling.
Familiarity with cloud environments (AWS).
Exposure to writing scripts using Python or Node.js.
Exposure to a web-front-end technology such as JavaScript, HTML and CSS.

Responsibilities

Design, develop, and maintain automated test frameworks and backend test suites using Java.
Write high-quality JUnit tests for RESTful APIs, service layers, and backend components.
Validate API schemas, request/response structures, and error-handling scenarios.
Create and execute API automation covering functional, regression, and integration layers.
Collaborate with developers to ensure testability, observability, and quality in new feature design.
Analyze logs, metrics, and service behavior to diagnose and troubleshoot failures.
Participate in Agile processes: refinement, planning, retrospectives, and daily scrums.
Drive improvements in CI/CD pipelines through automation and quality gates.
Contribute to scaling QE across microservices by building reusable test components and libraries.