Senior Technical Engineering Manager, SDET

Position Overview

As a Senior Technical Engineering Manager, SDET at Alkami , you will lead, mentor, and scale a team of Software Development Engineers in Test (SDETs) responsible for delivering high-quality, scalable, and reliable automation frameworks and testing solutions.

This role combines strategic leadership with hands-on technical execution — requiring you to stay close to the codebase and contribute directly to framework design, automation architecture, and quality infrastructure (approximately 20–30% hands-on coding and reviews ).

You will own and evolve Alkami’s quality engineering strategy, driving quality-first practices across multiple product domains. Working closely with Engineering, Product, DevOps, and Security teams, you’ll embed quality early in the development lifecycle through shift-left testing , continuous validation , and observability-driven feedback loops .

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of SDETs focused on full-stack automation across Web, Mobile, and API layers.
• Contribute directly to the design, architecture, and development of test automation frameworks, tools, and libraries (~20–30% hands-on coding).
• Architect and evolve scalable automation frameworks and testing infrastructure to improve reliability, maintainability, and velocity.
• Define and execute enterprise-level quality strategies across functional, regression, integration, exploratory, performance, and reliability testing.
• Partner with Development, Product, DevOps, and Security teams to design and implement holistic testing strategies ensuring high-quality releases.
• Integrate automated testing into CI / CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions) to ensure early defect detection.
• Lead and analyze performance, load, and scalability testing (JMeter, Gatling), incorporating observability data into quality metrics.
• Define and track key metrics (e.g., defect escape rate, automation coverage, stability) to drive continuous improvement.
• Champion modern testing practices : shift-left, mocking, service virtualization, contract testing, and risk-based validation.
• Ensure robust test environments, data management, and automation infrastructure supporting rapid delivery cycles.
• Lead hiring, onboarding, and professional development for SDETs, fostering a culture of ownership, inclusion, and continuous improvement.
• Represent Quality Engineering in enterprise programs, influencing architecture and design for reliability, performance, and customer trust.

Qualifications

Required :

Preferred :