Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)

Quilt•Redwood City, CA

48d•$150,000 - $200,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Our mission is to move humanity off of fossil fuel heating. 20% of US global warming emissions come from homes (that's more than cars!). The largest driver of home emissions is burning fossil fuels for heat. To stop climate change, over 80M US homes need to transition from combustion to efficient, electric heat pumps over the coming decades. We believe for this to happen the world needs fantastic products that are easy to purchase. Today's heat pumps lack great design, make limited use of software, and are difficult and stressful to adopt. We are building a next generation, beautifully designed, AI optimized home heating and cooling system that is 10x better than what is on the market today. Role Quilt is hiring an SDET to build and scale test infrastructure for our heat pump products across embedded systems, cloud services, and mobile platforms. We're looking for someone who sees manual testing as a problem to automate, not a job to do. You'll work alongside a talented embedded and cloud engineering team, building the frameworks, simulators, and CI/CD pipelines that enable fast, confident releases. This is an infrastructure-building role with high leverage—your work will multiply the productivity of the entire engineering team. We have hardware-in-the-loop test rigs and device simulators already in place. Your job is to expand them, make them easier to use, and drive adoption across the team. You'll also partner closely with embedded engineers to improve code testability—making it very easy for them to write unit and integration tests. What Success Looks Like In 3 months: You've automated the top 10 manual test scenarios that were blocking releases CI/CD pipeline improvements have cut test cycle time by 30% You've identified the biggest testability gaps in the embedded codebase In 6 months: Embedded engineers are writing 2x more unit tests because you made it easy Device simulator coverage has expanded to cover new product variants Regression test suite catches bugs before they reach QA In 12 months: Test infrastructure is robust enough that engineers trust CI results over manual validation You've led a major refactor to make a previously untestable subsystem fully testable The team is shipping faster with higher confidence because of the test infrastructure you've built About Quilt We are a growing team of ambitious people who truly care about the impact of their work. We are on a mission to accelerate a species-level human transition. For over a million years, we've been burning things to stay warm. It's time to move to a better way of living. At Quilt, we're on a mission to make clean, efficient heating and cooling accessible to everyone—and we know that heat pumps can play a big role in creating healthier, more climate-resilient homes. But the reality is, climate change and outdated energy systems don't impact everyone equally. That's why we're building a diverse, inclusive team—because we believe the best solutions come from people with different lived experiences and perspectives. We welcome teammates of all races, ethnicities, genders, identities, abilities, and backgrounds, and we're committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels empowered to shape the future of climate tech. This is a full-time, hybrid position working out of our Redwood City office. Candidates must be able to commute to the office at least 3 days a week. We are not able to offer relocation assistance for this role. The expected base annual salary range for this role is $150,000-$200,000, depending on experience. In addition to base salary, Quilt also offers meaningful equity and top-tier health benefits. Don't meet 100% of the requirements? That's okay, apply anyways! If you're excited about this role and think you could bring something unique to the team, we encourage you to apply—even if your experience doesn't match perfectly. We'd love to hear from you. Need accommodations during the hiring process? No problem—just let us know. We're here to support you. ([email protected])

Requirements

4-6 years of SDET or test automation experience, ideally with IoT, embedded systems, or hardware products
Strong Python for test automation (pytest framework highly preferred)
Experience with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing or device integration testing
CI/CD pipeline development and maintenance (GitHub Actions, CircleCI, or similar)
Comfortable with Linux/Unix environments and shell scripting
Experience influencing engineering practices—you've convinced developers to refactor code for testability
API testing for REST/gRPC services
SQL/database testing for telemetry or time-series data validation
Strong debugging and problem-solving skills for complex hardware/software systems
Excellent communication and collaboration skills
Self-motivated with ability to work independently and identify infrastructure gaps
Passion for electrification and home automation
Strong mission alignment around climate and decarbonization

Nice To Haves

Experience testing firmware OTA updates or device provisioning flows
Understanding of device communication protocols (Modbus, serial, gRPC)
Experience with device simulators, emulators, or virtual test environments
Mobile device testing experience (Appium for iOS/Android)
Basic Docker and containerization knowledge
Comfortable reading/modifying C++ test code (gtest) when needed
Bazel build system experience
Experience with HVAC systems or similar IoT domains
Embedded Linux or Raspberry Pi test development
Web E2E automation (Cypress/Playwright) for dashboards
Knowledge of time-series databases (TimescaleDB/PostgreSQL)

Responsibilities

Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines for embedded, cloud, and mobile testing (GitHub Actions, Bazel)
Extend hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test infrastructure for device commissioning, OTA updates, and telemetry validation
Develop device simulators and mocks to reduce hardware dependencies in testing
Automate repetitive manual test scenarios into regression suites (e.g., pairing flows, firmware upgrades, cloud integration)
Create reusable test fixtures and libraries that make it easy for engineers to write tests
Debug and eliminate flaky tests; improve CI reliability and speed
Build test fixtures, utilities, and templates that make it easy for embedded engineers to write tests
Design testable interfaces and mock layers for device features
Provide C++ test examples (gtest) for common embedded patterns
Collaborate on architecture decisions to ensure new features can be tested efficiently
Improve developer experience around writing and running tests locally and in CI
Document testing patterns and best practices for embedded systems
Perform hands-on testing of critical release scenarios (device pairing, OTA, mobile app integration)
Validate firmware changes with automated and exploratory testing
Support mobile app testing (iOS/Android) for key user flows
Triage and reproduce customer-reported issues for engineering teams