Principal Software Engineer In Test (SDET)

Job Description

We are looking for a Principal Software Engineer in Test to lead and evolve our quality engineering practice across backend services and client applications. This role is hands-on, highly technical, and focused on building robust, scalable test automation for REST and WebSocket APIs, as well as web, mobile, and desktop client UIs.

As a principal-level engineer, you will define testing strategy, design automation frameworks, and partner closely with backend, frontend, mobile, and platform teams to ensure quality is built into the system. This is not a manual QA role.

Employment Type

This is a full-time independent contractor position. We are not currently hiring for direct employee positions.

Location

This is a fully remote position. Work where you perform your best.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end test automation strategy, architecture, and integration across backend services and client applications
• Design, build, and maintain scalable test automation frameworks for:
• REST APIs
• WebSocket / real-time messaging APIs
• Web UIsMobile (iOS / Android) clients
• Desktop clients
• Design, build, and maintain automated tests for authentication, authorization, data validation, error handling, and backward compatibility
• Design, build, and maintain complex tests for WebSocket/streaming protocols
• Collaborate with backend teams on contract testing and schema validation
• Integrate automated testing into CI/CD pipelines
• Define and enforce quality gates for merges, releases, and deployments
• Analyze test failures, improve signal-to-noise ratio, and reduce flakiness

Requirements

What You Bring 

• Bachelor’s degree in a technical field (Computer Science, Physics, or Engineering) or equivalent professional experience
• 10+ years professional experience in a related technical field
• 3+ years in a senior/lead role
• Expert-level coding skills in at least one major language (Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, or Go) with the ability to read and possibly debug other languages (Kotlin, Swift, Objective-C, C#)
• Deep experience testing REST APIs and real-time systems (WebSocket, gRPC, or similar)
• Hands-on experience with UI automation frameworks for:
• Web (e.g., Playwright, Cypress, Selenium)
• Mobile (e.g., Appium, XCUITest, Espresso)
• Strong understanding of distributed systems, asynchronous behavior, and microservices architecture
• Proficiency with CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Spinnaker, etc) and Docker/Kubernetes
• Ability to debug complex issues across backend services and client applications

Nice to Have (Preferred Qualifications)

• Master's degree or higher in a technical field
• Experience testing high-scale or real-time systems (chat, presence, streaming, collaboration tools)
• Experience validating contracts and schemas (Pact, Postman, Specmatic, Buf, AsyncAPI Studio, or similar)
• Performance and load testing for APIs and WebSockets (k6, JMeter, Gatling, or similar)
• Experience with observability tools (logs, metrics, traces) to support test diagnostics
• Experience working closely with product and UX teams