Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)

Job Description: Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET)

Position Summary

We are seeking a highly skilled Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) to join our engineering team. The ideal candidate is a software engineer with a passion for quality who can design, develop, and maintain scalable test automation solutions while collaborating closely with software developers, DevOps engineers, product managers, and QA professionals.

The SDET will play a key role in ensuring software quality throughout the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) by building robust automation frameworks, developing testing tools, integrating automated testing into CI/CD pipelines, and promoting quality engineering best practices.

Key Responsibilities

Test Automation & Framework Development

Design, develop, and maintain scalable, reusable, and maintainable automation frameworks.

Develop automated test scripts for Web, Mobile, Desktop, API, and Microservices applications.

Create data-driven, keyword-driven, hybrid, and behavior-driven (BDD) automation frameworks.

Continuously improve automation coverage and execution efficiency.

Software Development

Write clean, maintainable, and production-quality code using modern programming languages.

Develop custom testing utilities, libraries, and tools to improve testing productivity.

Participate in code reviews and contribute to engineering best practices.

Refactor automation code to improve maintainability and scalability.

API & Backend Testing

Design and automate RESTful and GraphQL API testing.

Validate request/response payloads, authentication, authorization, and business logic.

Perform database validations using SQL and NoSQL databases.

Develop reusable API testing libraries.

Continuous Integration & DevOps

Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines.

Configure and maintain automated test execution in Jenkins, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or similar platforms.

Analyze pipeline failures and improve test reliability.

Support shift-left testing practices.

Quality Engineering

Participate in requirement analysis, design reviews, and sprint planning.

Identify quality risks early in the SDLC.

Develop comprehensive test strategies and test plans.

Improve application testability through collaboration with developers.

Drive quality metrics and automation adoption.

Performance & Security Testing

Support performance, load, stress, and scalability testing.

Assist with security and vulnerability validation where applicable.

Identify bottlenecks and recommend improvements.

Test Data & Environment Management

Create and maintain reusable test data.

Manage automated test environments.

Support service virtualization and test environment stability.

Agile Collaboration

Participate in Scrum ceremonies.

Work closely with Product Owners, Developers, QA Engineers, DevOps Engineers, and Architects.

Provide accurate effort estimates for automation tasks.

Mentor junior engineers and promote quality engineering practices.

Reporting & Continuous Improvement

Monitor automation execution results.

Analyze failures and perform root cause analysis.

Maintain automation dashboards and quality metrics.

Recommend process improvements to increase product quality and delivery speed.

Required Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field.

5+ years of experience in software testing and automation.

Strong software development experience.

Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.

Strong communication and collaboration abilities.

Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments.

Technical Skills

Programming Languages

Java

C#

Python

JavaScript/TypeScript

Kotlin (preferred)

Swift (preferred)

Test Automation

Selenium WebDriver

Playwright

Cypress

Appium

Robot Framework

API Testing

Rest Assured

Postman

Karate

Newman

GraphQL testing

Unit Testing

JUnit

TestNG

NUnit

xUnit

PyTest

BDD

Cucumber

SpecFlow

Behave

CI/CD

Azure DevOps

Jenkins

GitHub Actions

GitLab CI

Version Control

Git

GitHub

Azure Repos

Bitbucket

Databases

SQL Server

PostgreSQL

MySQL

Oracle

MongoDB

Cloud & Containers

Microsoft Azure

AWS

Google Cloud Platform

Docker

Kubernetes

Performance Testing

JMeter

k6

Gatling

Test Management

Azure DevOps

Jira

TestRail

Zephyr

Xray

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with distributed systems and microservices.

Experience testing cloud-native applications.

Knowledge of containerized environments.

Familiarity with infrastructure as code.

Experience with AI-assisted testing tools and intelligent test automation.

Understanding of secure software development practices.

Soft Skills

Strong software engineering mindset.

Passion for quality and continuous improvement.

Excellent debugging and troubleshooting abilities.

Critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Strong ownership and accountability.

Ability to mentor and guide team members.

Effective stakeholder communication.

Adaptability in fast-paced Agile environments.

Success Metrics

An SDET will be considered successful by:

Increasing automation coverage.

Reducing regression execution time.

Improving CI/CD pipeline reliability.

Reducing escaped defects.

Improving automation framework maintainability.

Enhancing application testability.

Reducing flaky tests.

Improving release quality and deployment confidence.