Senior SDET Lead
1 day ago
Philadelphia
Job Description Employment Type: Full-Time, Remote About Us Datavault AI, along with its event-technology subsidiary Event Citadel (formerly CompuSystems), operates across a diverse portfolio of technology and service divisions. Datavault AI Inc. delivers high-performance computing software, Web 3.0 data-management solutions, and advanced audio technologies to a broad range of industries. Its Acoustic Science division licenses spatial and multichannel HD audio technologies—including ADIO®, WiSA®, and Sumerian®—to customers in sports & entertainment, events & venues, automotive, finance, and other sectors. Event Citadel (formerly CompuSystems), founded in 1976, is a trusted provider of end-to-end event technology solutions, offering registration, ticketing, lead retrieval, and attendee-engagement services for events of all sizes across trade, association, corporate, and government markets. Job Description We are seeking a highly technical QA Lead / Senior SDET Lead to architect and drive our automation‑first quality engineering strategy. This role is deeply hands‑on: you will design automation frameworks, build test infrastructure, integrate quality signals into CI/CD pipelines, and ensure our systems are testable, observable, and reliable by design. You will lead a team of QA engineers while also contributing directly to code, tooling, and automation architecture. Responsibilities Technical Leadership & Quality Engineering Strategy • Lead and mentor SDETs and QA engineers with a focus on automation, tooling, and engineering excellence., • Define a modern quality engineering strategy centered on automation, continuous testing, and shift‑left practices., • Establish coding standards for test automation, testability patterns, and engineering best practices., • Architect, build, and maintain automation frameworks for:, • UI testing (Playwright, Cypress, Selenium), • API testing (REST, GraphQL, gRPC), • Backend/service‑level testing, • Contract testing (Pact or similar), • Develop reusable libraries, utilities, and internal test frameworks., • Implement parallel execution, distributed test runners, and containerized test environments., • Integrate automated tests into CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins)., • Build continuous testing workflows across build, integration, staging, and production‑like environments., • Implement automated quality gates, flaky‑test detection, and intelligent failure triage., • Oversee and contribute to test planning, test case design, and automated test development., • Ensure robust coverage across functional, regression, integration, and end‑to‑end scenarios., • Implement service virtualization, mock servers, and dependency isolation for distributed systems., • Integrate test signals with observability platforms (logs, metrics, traces)., • Define and track engineering‑level quality KPIs (coverage, flakiness rate, MTTR, automation ROI)., • Build dashboards for test health, pipeline quality, and release readiness., • Promote early testing practices including unit, component, and contract testing., • Work with developers to improve code testability, dependency injection patterns, and instrumentation., • Support TDD/BDD workflows and participate in code reviews with a focus on test coverage and quality., • Advocate for built‑in test capabilities such as health checks, diagnostics, and runtime assertions. Qualifications • 7+ years in QA/SDET roles, with 2–3 years in a technical leadership capacity., • Strong hands‑on experience building automation frameworks (UI, API, backend)., • Proficiency in one or more programming languages (Java, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript)., • Deep experience integrating automated tests into CI/CD pipelines., • Expertise with modern test frameworks (Playwright, Cypress, Selenium, TestNG, JUnit, pytest, etc.)., • Strong understanding of distributed systems, microservices, and API‑driven architectures., • Solid understanding of Agile, DevOps, and continuous delivery practices., • Experience with Git and modern branching strategies. Preferred • Experience with containerized test environments (Docker, Kubernetes)., • Familiarity with contract testing, service virtualization, and mock servers., • Experience with performance and load testing tools (k6, Gatling, JMeter)., • Exposure to observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry)., • Experience in high‑scale or real‑time systems (ad tech, fintech, event tech, etc.). What We Offer • Competitive salary and benefits package., • A high‑impact engineering environment where automation and quality engineering are first‑class citizens., • Opportunities to work closely with senior technical leadership., • The chance to shape the automation and quality architecture of a next‑generation platform., • A culture built on innovation, ownership, and continuous improvement.