Job Description – Staff Software Development Engineer in Test (Staff SDET)
About the Role
We are looking for a highly experienced Staff Software Development Engineer in Test
(Staff SDET) to lead the design, evolution, and reliability of our domain-level test
infrastructure. This is a senior individual contributor role where you will own the
architecture, automation frameworks, CI/CD quality gates, and engineering standards that
enable high-quality software delivery at scale.
As a Staff SDET, you will remain deeply hands-on—building automation frameworks,
solving complex infrastructure challenges, improving pipeline reliability, and mentoring
engineers across the organisation. You will work closely with Staff Quality Engineers (QE)
and Staff Software Engineers (SE) to ensure quality is engineered into every stage of the
software development lifecycle.
Your work will directly impact engineering velocity by reducing regression cycle times,
improving automation reliability, and enabling AI-driven testing practices.
Key Responsibilities
Test Infrastructure & Automation
- Own the architecture and long-term evolution of the domain's automation
frameworks.
- Design, build, maintain, and enhance scalable test automation solutions for UI, API,
database, and microservices.
- Develop reusable automation components and infrastructure used across multiple
engineering teams.
- Define and maintain automation standards, coding guidelines, and framework best
practices.
- Maintain infrastructure documentation, Architecture Decision Records (ADRs), and
automation roadmaps.
CI/CD & Quality Engineering
- Design and manage CI/CD quality gates to ensure reliable software releases.
- Continuously improve pipeline stability, automation execution time, and deployment
confidence.
- Monitor automation health and proactively eliminate flaky tests and unstable
pipelines.
- Establish measurable reliability targets for automation infrastructure.
- Engineer security, compliance, and validation checks directly into deployment
pipelines.
AI-Driven Test Engineering
- Drive adoption of AI-assisted software testing and automation.
- Build infrastructure that enables AI agents to generate, execute, analyse, and maintain
automated tests.
- Continuously evaluate emerging AI testing technologies and implement best practices
across the engineering organisation.
Engineering Leadership
- Serve as the technical authority for test automation within your domain.
- Lead architectural discussions and drive long-term engineering decisions.
- Mentor SDETs and Software Engineers on automation design, framework
development, and testing best practices.
- Conduct code reviews and maintain high engineering standards.
- Promote testability, contract testing, and quality-first engineering practices.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
Partner closely with:
- Staff Software Engineers
- Staff Quality Engineers
- Product Management
- DevOps & Platform Engineering
- Security & Compliance teams
Continuous Improvement
- Reduce regression cycle time through intelligent automation.
- Measure automation effectiveness using engineering metrics.
- Track automation debt and drive continuous improvements.
- Analyse production defects and continuously strengthen automation coverage.
- Support business-critical releases and resolve high-priority production pipeline issues when required.
What Success Looks Like
- Stable, scalable, and maintainable automation infrastructure adopted across
engineering teams.
- Significant reduction in regression execution time and faster software delivery.
- Near-zero false-positive CI/CD quality gate failures.
- High automation reliability with measurable improvements in pipeline health.
- AI-powered automation integrated into engineering workflows.
- Well-documented frameworks, standards, and architectural decisions.
- Strong mentoring culture resulting in the growth of future automation leaders.
Required Qualifications
- 8–12+ years of experience in Software Testing, Quality Engineering, or Test
Automation.
- Extensive experience designing and owning enterprise-scale automation frameworks.
- Strong programming experience in Java, C#, Python, or JavaScript/TypeScript.
- Expertise with UI automation tools such as Selenium, Playwright, or Cypress.
- Strong API automation experience using REST Assured, Postman, Karate, or
equivalent.
- Hands-on experience with SQL and database validation.
- Strong understanding of distributed systems, microservices, and contract testing.
- Deep knowledge of CI/CD tools such as Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, or
GitLab CI.
- Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
- Experience integrating automation into DevSecOps pipelines.
- Proven ability to reduce regression execution time through scalable automation.
- Experience driving technical decisions and influencing engineering teams without
direct authority.
- Excellent analytical, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with experience creating technical
documentation and architectural decision records (ADRs).
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience working within FinTech, Payments, Banking, Lending, or other regulated
industries.
- Experience with AI-assisted software testing and intelligent automation platforms.
- Knowledge of performance and load testing tools such as JMeter, k6, or Gatling.
- Familiarity with observability and monitoring tools including Splunk, Grafana,
Kibana, or Elastic Stack.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline (or equivalent practical experience).
- Master's degree or advanced technical qualifications are advantageous.
Why Join Us?
- Work on enterprise-scale payment technology powering mission-critical systems.
- Build next-generation AI-enabled automation platforms.
- Collaborate with highly skilled engineers solving complex technical challenges.
- Influence engineering standards across multiple products and teams.
- Opportunity to shape the future of quality engineering and automation strategy.
Benefits
- 5-Day Work Week
- Complimentary Meal Every Day
- Internet Reimbursement
- Gym Reimbursement
- Comprehensive Group Medical Insurance
- Mental Health & Wellness Support
- Relocation Assistance (where applicable)
- Collaborative, innovation-driven engineering culture
Pay: ₹2,500,000.00 - ₹3,800,000.00 per month
Work Location: In person
